How to Simplify a Vacation Home Control System
By Steven Castle
This 4,100-sq-foot vacation home in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains is a good example of keeping things nice and easy.

Simplicity rules when considering a home control system for a vacation home—especially if you have guests or renters; so does making sure the home’s electronics and entertainment components blend in well with the natural surroundings.

This 4,100-square-foot vacation home in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, N.C., was designed as a cool-air summer retreat. Or, as Scott Varn of local electronic installation company Harmony Interiors likes to call it, “hip mountain air.” Asheville, after all, is a haven for craftsman and artisans, such as Jim Koerber, who is responsible for the home’s gorgeous natural woodwork, some of it made from local locust trees and mountain laurel branches.



The Blue Moon Lodge, as it is called, was not only built within a beautiful natural setting; it was made from natural and eco-friendly materials, from the giant poplar posts to the refurbished 100-year-old barn boards to the solar electric systems, organic sheets, and Energy Star appliances.

The owners live in South Carolina and often rent out the home, so simplicity and remote operation of the control system was a must. “They may be there only on a weekend or a getaway, and you don’t want to be tech support,” says Varn.

To preclude complications, he steered the owners away from fancy touchscreens and toward the simple keypads of a Control4 home control system. Buttons on a keypad near the entry are marked HELLO, GOODBYE, and SHUTDOWN. HELLO sets the temperature in the home to a comfortable setting and puts on appropriate lighting. GOODBYE is designed for when the home is unoccupied temporarily.

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