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The house that tech built
A trio of Leeds graduates have created their very own hi-tech house of the future.
IT'S enough to make gadget nuts drool with jealousy.
A home completely kitted out with the very latest in home entertainment technology – and all at the touch of a button.
In a UK first, every room in this beautiful 19th century Leeds property boasts a dizzying array of hidden features.
Artwork automatically rises up to reveal TV screens; a projector screen emerges from the floor to convert the dining room into a board room; speakers are concealed within ceilings and a drawing room transforms into a cinema complete with 7ft projection screen.
With such expensive hardware on show it's no surprise that the exclusive address is also equipped with cutting edge security in the form of night vision cameras, CCTV and automatic gate entry.
But there's bad news for any millionaires hoping to snap up this dream home.
The des res, in Yeadon, is a show house put together by a trio of Leeds University graduates to act as a shop window for their flourishing business that brings Hollywood glamour to the nation's homes.
29-year-olds Fraser Stride and Oliver Lisles, together with 28-year-old Simon Mathieson, have worked day and night, seven days a week, over the past 12 months to see the project through to completion, using their technical skills and expertise to create the unique home.
With mood lighting, multi-room audio and video technology, concealed screens and speakers, two hidden cinemas, touchscreen lighting controls and security, the project took 12 months to complete, with a total investment of 1m.
Its designers boast that nowhere else in Britain is it possible to experience so much of what the home technology industry can offer, all under one roof.
With speakers disguised as artwork, mirrors that turn into TVs and speakers built into walls behind plaster, every inch is luxuriously technological.
Handiwork
And on September 12, the trio behind Finite Solutions will open the home to invited guests to showcase their handiwork.
Set up four years ago, the company has already won a host of awards and clinched a number of mammoth contracts.
"We've just completed two recent projects in Horsforth," says Fraser Stride, Finite's marketing director. "One was for 190,000 and the other was for 240,000."
But both are dwarfed by an upcoming project in Knightsbridge in London that's worth 1.5m.
"And that's just the home entertainment budget," says Fraser. "It doesn't include any of the security systems that we'll be putting in."
As students in Leeds, the three entrepreneurs dreamed of indulging their love of gadgets but never thought they would end up doing it for a living.
"I lived in a house in Hyde Park and the lounge was in the basement. We rigged up a CCTV system so we could see who was at the front door upstairs and push a button to make the door fly open.
"After graduation Simon worked for a hi-fi shop in Headingley called Image Audio and customers began asking him to help design the layout of their home system – that's when he and Oliver created Finite Solutions."
Fraser, bored on a graduate training scheme with a major bank, joined the pair and they began by installing home entertainment systems for clients including Leeds United stars.
Since then the company has gone from strength to strength and has customers all over the country, including famous sporting personalities, celebrities and successful figures from the world of business.
"There are some fantastic properties across Yorkshire and we've done some amazing bespoke home cinema and home automation installations across the region," says Fraser.
"We're always looking for new ways for our customers to make the most of technology, to make their lives easier, more luxurious, or safer, and now we're able to illustrate this through our very own showhouse. We're looking forward to inviting our customers in to experience it for themselves."
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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