To NFL football fans in Colorado, Mike Shanahan is revered as the legendary former head coach of their beloved Denver Broncos, having helped lead the franchise to back-to-back Super Bowl wins in 1997 and 1998. To football fans in the California Bay Area, however, Mike is probably better known as the proud papa of Kyle Shanahan, head coach of the 2024 Super Bowl-bound San Francisco 49ers.
Tyson Rabani, owner of Denver-based custom integrator QAV, was introduced to Mike Shanahan and his wife Peggy as a referral from their home’s builder. The situation was unique because QAV did not have an opportunity to prewire a system for the Shanahan’s new home; their introduction came just before their closing.
“We found ourselves standing in a finished home with almost no low-voltage infrastructure present, and the client was dreaming big with their wish list,” Rabani said. “We were up for the challenge!”
The relationship with Mike and Peggy was brand new and got everyone at QAV buzzing about having the former head coach of the Broncos as a client. “His name carries significant weight here in Colorado,” Rabani said. “This was the beginning of a new and promising relationship.”
Mike and Peggy had just sold their home in the tony Cherry Hills neighborhood. It featured an older Crestron (SIMPL) system, and they asked QAV to “do their best” to provide the functionality and fit and finish that QAV prides themselves on. They wanted security, surveillance, access control, a robust network, whole-home lighting, motorized window treatments, distributed audio and video indoors and outside, and two “living space” theaters with a friendly voice assistant to ensure all the technology would be easy to use.
“We based our design on Crestron Home to provide our clients with the latest experience available from Crestron,” Rabani noted. “We retrofitted the entire home with Crestron Horizon keypads to provide useful whole-home lighting control and automation in a sophisticated contemporary design with advanced capability. There were only a few windows with prewire, and they only had two wires present.”
Every window in the house received a Crestron motorized window treatment in wired InfinitEX or battery power. The gym has a large beautiful glass entrance. QAV retrofitted Cresnet wire from the equipment room to the gym and added an interior Crestron motorized window treatment to provide additional privacy from the adjacent entertaining spaces. The result was a seamless and luxurious experience with control of ambient light with added privacy.
The distributed audio zone prewires were scattered and lacking. QAV used Sonos amps to fire up the zones with existing wires and added hidden Sonos amps in the remaining zones. Mike and Peggy wanted a dedicated theater, but there wasn’t a great opportunity to make it happen based on the existing floorplan, so QAV retrofitted two high-performance surround sound systems in the home — one on the main level and one on the lower level.
For Rabani, Crestron was an obvious choice for this project. “The homeowners were already familiar with Crestron and had a great experience in their previous home,” he noted. “That system had become outdated over the years, so they were looking forward to a modern Crestron experience. We led with Crestron Home to deliver on that promise. The control from room to room is consistent, using the same remotes, same voice assistant microphones, and same keypads. They love it! The biggest benefit for the homeowners is having the same functionality they were used to in their previous home, but better. The system is easier to use, has a designer fit and finish, and everything works. The result is an enhanced lifestyle with luxury and conveniences. Simple, elegant buttons shut down the house at night, turning off every light, closing every shade, turning off all the audio and video, and so on.”
The Shanahan’s top picks from this project are the Seura dual-mirror TVs in the primary bath, the Leon carpentry finishes, the high-performance living space theaters, the Josh.ai voice assistant, and the seamless experience with whole-home lighting, shades, audio, and video. One of Coach Shanahan’s favorite commands to say is, “Ok, Josh. Play Johnny Cash.”
For Mike, the evolution of from the capabilities of system that he and Peggy had in their 2008 home to the new one controlled by Crestron Home was like night and day. “It was fun to go to QAV’s showroom and have Tyson take me through the shades, the audio system, the video system, and the speakers and different things I knew nothing about,” Shanahan said. “And I was just mesmerized by the things you could do; I really had no idea that it could all work that well.”
Related: New for the Crestron Smart Home: Crestron Home OS 4
