Your room with a view
Jay and Maria Rappaport didn't just watch The Matrix at home, they immersed themselves in it. An 11-foot screen fills the front wall of their home theater in Great Falls, Va., and a nine-speaker system explodes with surround-sound realism. The cinema experience doesn't stop there. Wood pillars, fabric-covered walls, and cone-shaped sconces all conjure up a contemporary movie hall. Ten leather chairs rise in three levels, stadium-style. Jay Rappaport plays the role of projectionist, controlling the action with a sophisticated hand-held touch-screen remote control. It will switch on the projector TV, tune it to the DVD player, adjust the volume just right, and even dim the lights. "All by pushing just one button," he says. "It's heaven."
Tens of millions of American homes now have at least the basics for a home theater--or media room, as the industry calls it. Oversize boxes of speaker kits and big-screen TV s are wheeled from store warehouses into neighborhoods every day, where the proud owners will try to make sense of myriad cables and connections to set up their own media room. But for a few well-heeled homeowners, these electronic goodies are just the starting point for an in-house cinema. Some of them sign up for whole-hog designs that can turn a rec room into a miniature Art Deco movie palace, complete with marquees, concession stands, ticket booths, and a proscenium arch over the screen. To further the effect, velvet curtains pull back automatically as the movie begins, and the corn starts popping as the lights dim. "Everybody eventually orders a theater popcorn maker," says Al Hutchinson, whose HTmarket.com sells theater accessories for the home (box, Page D4).
Big-screen boom. Movie stars and moguls were among the first to own screening rooms back in the 1920s and 1930s: The 50-seat theater was the largest room in William Randolph Hearst's castle at San Simeon, Calif. When big-screen TV s emerged in the mid-1980s, a few wealthy folks began building special rooms to house them. Twenty years later, it no longer seems a fad--with custom installations growing at about 20 percent a year, to around 55,000 in 2003, according to market analysts at Parks Associates.
The average price? In the range of $35,000 to $45,000, just for the electronics. Construction and a fancy decor can easily double that cost or push it still higher. Building a dedicated theater often involves new walls, floors, and ceilings--essentially floating a room within the original room, with space between the walls for cables and soundproofing. "Some installers brag they won't even touch a job that's under six figures," says Greg Pass of SuperVision, which installs home theaters in Los Angeles. Seven-figure installations are not unheard of: The Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association includes a $1 million-and-up category in its annual best-of contest. "It's not that everything is gold-plated, it's that the real estate is bigger," says Theo Kalomirakis, a designer of theaters for the likes of movie critic Roger Ebert, author Dean Koontz, and movie star Eddie Murphy.
Besides the electronics, construction, and accessories, the other big-ticket category is furniture. A home theater chair may have only the cup holder in common with those in commercial cinemas. Leather upholstery and motorized reclining can push a chair's cost into the thousands. Big lounger makers, including Berkline ( berkline.com ) and La-Z-Boy ( lazboy.com ), all aim lines at home theaters. Berkline will even preinstall a "ButtKicker," a device that will vibrate the chair to enhance the rumbling of a good action flick.
A number of Web sites have sprung up to help daring do-it-yourselfers, including hometheaterforum.com and avsforum.com . But those who find computers complicated might be intimidated by the back of a high-end, audiovisual receiver and its many connector slots.
Ritzy remotes. The challenge of getting the gear to work together makes hiring a professional to do the installation more appealing. Today's fancy remotes alone can cost $10,000 to $50,000, with much of that spent on customizing the software after long talks with the owners to decide exactly how the system should respond to each button. Does pressing "Play DVD" just start the movie, for example, or does it also dim the room's lights? And all of this custom programming has to consider that more than one person will use the remote. "I want the wife or kids to know they can watch a movie without worrying they're going to screw things up," says Bill Green of Q Audio and Video, an installer in Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Finding a home theater professional can be as easy as a trip to the local retailer. Smaller chains like Tweeter, Myer Emco, and Ultimate Electronics offer in-home installations for basic setups. Homeowners who want the real theater look might turn to specialists who only do custom setups--a list can be found at cedia.net, although word-of-mouth usually works best. The builder for an addition to Rappaport's home recommended his installer, Integrated Media Systems of Sterling, Va. About 18 months after it was finished, Rappaport says he has no regrets about the dollar investment--which he asked U.S. News not to specify, though he says it was near the average for a well-decorated custom home theater. "It's one of my favorite rooms in the house," says the high-tech executive.
That's the case, too, for Andy King, a salesman in Cape Girardeau who had Green install his theater about four years ago. Dedicated media rooms were just appearing in his small town along the Mississippi River in southeastern Missouri about the time he installed his. "Two neighbors have since added their own," he says, "after seeing ours." That's helped convince him he'll get back most or all of his investment, which was about $60,000 for the 30-by-16-foot room. In the meantime, the family of four regularly uses the theater, as well as its popcorn maker: "We spend a lot of time together at home watching Disney stuff, like Old Yeller ," King says. "In fact, I can't remember the last time we went out to a movie."
Make my matinee
Accessories can add the finishing touch to a home theater. Here are just a few that are available, and the Web sites that sell them:
Antique popcorn maker with 6-ounce kettle (left) ($900, HTmarket.com ). Popping supplies and theater-style tubs and boxes are extra.
Custom-built ticket booth facade ($2,500, vintage vending.com ). Available in either mahogany or Art Deco styling.
Glass-front candy case in a concession stand ($1,815, hometheaterdecor.com ). Comes in five different colors, with metallic accents.
Automatic curtain system with remote control ($730, hometheaterinteriors.com ).Drapes can cover up to 9 feet of wall space.
Two chrome posts and 6 feet of red velour rope ($595, homecinemadecor.com ). For about $450, add a backlit poster marquee. -David LaGesse
This story appears in the May 24, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.