Alfred Karram Jr., a South Florida architect, general contractor and designer of glamorous, turnkey beachfront homes for the past 17 years, knows his clients well. They range between thirty- and eightysomething, they come from old money and new, and they own multiple properties scattered across multiple continents. A monumentally successful group of financial wizards, music industry moguls and A-list stars, they still shrink in fear when faced with a media room touchscreen or multimedia tower.

“They say, ‘I can’t work that,’” Alfred explains. “They get very intimidated and most of the time turned off.” So when the architect designed Residence No. 10—a 4,400-square-foot, $6.95-million spec condominium housed in the ultra-luxurious Excelsior overlooking the Atlantic and the

Intracoastal Waterway in Boca Raton—he could have played it safe by keeping his investment low tech. Instead, he included all the trappings of a wired-for-today, 20,000-square-foot house. Now, he says, by the time he finishes walking prospective buyers through the space, they are completely sold on its technology—which hums into action with the touch of one button. “Right there, they start to see the ease of it,” he says.

It all begins in the Excelsior’s grand two-story lobby, where a biometric fingerprint reader in the elevator identifies residents prior to whisking them to their floor. The white gold-leaf elevator doors then open to deposit them directly into their private foyer. If the homeowners are returning from a trip, they can activate the home’s automated elements with a single finger: Enter a security code and press the green “welcome” button on the 6-inch Crestron touchscreen in the foyer and the lights come on, shades rise and draperies part, swooshing from side to side. As air-conditioning units purr into action, cool air drifts from a vent above an alcove. The Paradigm flush-mount ceiling speakers emit a favorite song pre-programmed to personalize the homecoming with a melody. “There’s no other ‘wow’ factor like it,” Alfred says. “You hear everything simultaneously. Clients stand there with their mouths open.”

And no wonder. Technology aside, they are greeted with views of a beveled granite hallway floor, and that of the turquoise ocean to the right and the Intracoastal to the left.

“You always have a view of water wherever you are,” says the architect, who reconfigured the condominium to ensure just that (even the French doors in the media room open to an oceanfront terrace). “My clientele doesn’t want to be confined to an ultra-dark room. They want to see the beach,” he says. “If they didn’t know that, I say, ‘This is why you bought that unit.’” To darken the room for a DVD-watching or to tune into CNN, just touch a single button on the Crestron touchscreen panel and the shades descend quickly and effortlessly.

Alfred confers with his mother, Miriam, about the interior appointments for every home he designs. First they walk the space, make drawings and then settle on the appropriate kinds of pieces for each room. Next, Miriam orchestrates a color scheme and starts traveling, attending furniture and textile shows all over the world. “We find the most unusual fabrics, usually woven silks and linens with different textures,” she says.

For this apartment, everything hinges around a platinum palette and attention to fine detail. In the media room, a pale custom-designed Poltrona Frau leather sofa seats six comfortably. Three lounge chairs, upholstered in hues ranging from light celadon to celery and deep green, are scattered about. Lined draperies in heavy French silk are also celadon; all the seating is down-filled for extra comfort and luxury. “People sit in these sofas and they die. They don’t want to get up,” he says.

Bowers & Wilkins speakers and a Philips rear-projection HDTV set form the basis of the media room audiovisual system. (Click image to enlarge)

Just as the inlaid burlwood bookcase anchors the living room (a window within the finely crafted piece drops, transforming it into a bar), another camphor burlwood veneer piece dominates the media room cabinetry Alfred designed to house the 64-inch, Philips rear-projection high-definition television and Bowers & Wilkins piano-finish speakers. Like the room’s bamboo floor, the base of the unit is bordered in green granite.

“In normal media rooms, everything is completely hidden. I took it upon myself to expose all the components,” he says, proud of his creation. “It is a very awesome piece as you walk into the room. The whole thing is a work of art.”

Burlwood carries through from the media room’s elaborate ceiling soffits to the balance of the apartment, which boasts more than 150 ceiling fixtures and lighting effects—ranging from indirect lighting to sconces and lamps, all of which are orchestrated by a LiteTouch control system. “Usually designers wrap them around the perimeter of the room and put a couple of recessed lights in,” Alfred says of his trademark architecturally styled soffits. “I use a very specific recessed can that is only 3 inches tall. That allows me to make delicate, layered soffits that tier into the room—not bulky, ominous things.”

To help clients overcome their intimidation of the room’s high-tech toys, Alfred immediately invites them to touch the DVD icon on the Crestron Isys touchpanel: “A $15,000-$16,000 piece of equipment,” he points out. Lights in the room softly dim, shades close and the television screen illuminates—all the result of a collaboration between Karram and his Miami-based installer of choice, Home System Control.

“Alfred’s strength is detail,” says Home System Control partner Luis Couvertier, who worked on the Excelsior and 30 other projects with Karram. “We make the audiovisual work with that and not the other way around.”

In deference to his aesthetics, the architect refuses to include “unsightly” acoustical panels in any home theater or media room he designs. “I dare any client to compare the sound to any room that has them,” he says. “There’s a lot of reflective equipment in here: wood, a big carpet, the leather sofa. But this is how I want the room to look—a really appealing media room.”

In another unusual design move, he opted to open up the glass-walled media room to more light by incorporating two etched, frosted windows that peer into the living room space on one side and into the dining room, past the kitchen and into the family room on the other.

To Alfred, this space is the total opposite of the typical media room, where everything is displayed right out in the open. Here, four flush-mounted Paradigm speakers hide within the ceiling and about 20 lights are recessed into the intricate soffits.

For the upholstered chairs, sofas, pillows and draperies, Miriam chose silky fabrics in platinum shades. To lend a transitional feel to a traditional room, she added a high-back contemporary chair in silver leather from Brueton Industries.

A sleek Fujitsu plasma TV complements the condominium’s designer furniture. (Click image to enlarge)

The family room overlooks the Intracoastal Waterway, which sparkles with lights at night. Inspired by an off-white tufted-leather chaise she found in Europe—which looks as if it should have a 1930s movie star lounging on it—Miriam incorporated a camel-colored sofa and wing chair into the room. Every piece is a selection designed and manufactured by Poltrona Frau. And because this living area opens up to the kitchen where the custom cabinets are of wenge wood, the custom-designed cabinet that houses equipment for the 42-inch Fujitsu plasma monitor is constructed of the same fine wood.

“We’re not like the typical designers who come in and plop down furniture and put up wallpaper,” the architect says.

In fact, acting as his own general contractor, Alfred is on the job every day in jeans and boots to ensure that his architectural designs are carried through in every phase of the project. He designs all his own cabinetry and millwork, and flies to Italy twice a year to buy exotic flooring stones from the local quarries.

To achieve higher ceilings in Residence No. 10, he removed sprinkler pipes and air-conditioning ducts, and moved the master bedroom suite from the west side of the building to the east so the future owner can wake up to the spectacular seascape. “Now you have public and private spaces on both sides of the apartment,” he says, “which makes for a much more efficient architectural use of the space.”

When potential buyers see the master suite, romance is more likely to come to mind than efficiency. Still, as in the rest of the apartment, technology lurks quietly beneath the luxurious surface. A case in point: Alfred custom-designed the chest at the head of the olive ash burlwood bed and the pop-up cabinet at the foot, which conceals a second 42-inch Fujitsu plasma screen. Miriam provided the sterling-silver tray and a Versace-designed tea set. Resting discreetly on the tray is a 6-inch Crestron touchscreen that operates the entire room; on the nightstand is a chrome-plated LiteTouch remote in case one prefers not to fumble for the Crestron in the middle of the night.

The Crestron touchscreen calls forth a plasma TV, which rises from the foot of the bed, then descends when not in use so as not to obstruct the view. (Click image to enlarge)

As in the media room, the bedroom has a system. Touch a button on the Crestron and not only does the plasma rise, but three motorized KEF speakers drop down from the soffit, aimed at the bed. Two rear Paradigm ceiling speakers shoot sound straight down from behind the bed.

“You don’t want to lose the beauty of the room, but you still want the elements of home theater,” installer Couvertier says. “That was a big challenge.”

Clearly, when the Karrams say “turnkey,” they mean turnkey.

Miriam adorns the home with linens and special soaps from France. Silverware is by Christofle, goblets by Bulgari, champagne flutes by Rosenthal, and china by Limoges. Whoever purchases Residence No. 10 can even place an emergency call to Alfred Karram II, Inc. if they need additional linens or china in the future. The company will supply them free of charge.

“When our clients come through, we invite them to pick up the accessories, look at the labels,” Alfred says. “Everything is the finest you can find on the planet. I designed this as if I were designing it for myself.”