A Luxury Home Built at the Edge of Residential Technology
In 1997, Conrado Home Builders completed the Old Adobe residence in Palo Alto, California. The project combined Tuscan-inspired architecture with several technologies that, at the time, were rarely seen together in a private residence.
The house was built as a three-story structure with a large basement and included integrated lighting controls, centralized home automation, a dedicated theater room, engineered exterior water features, and custom lifestyle elements designed specifically around the owners’ interests.
Conrado’s First Dedicated Home Theater Installation
One of the most technically ambitious parts of the project was the dedicated home theater built in the basement level of the residence.
At the time, most homes still relied on rear-projection televisions or standard living room entertainment setups. The theater at Old Adobe was designed as a separate viewing room with a wall-sized projection screen built specifically for large-format viewing. What made the system notable was the technology behind the image itself.
The system incorporated a high-end video processor known as a line quadrupler paired with a CRT projector. The problem these processors solved was a real one. Standard video sources of the era such as LaserDisc, VHS, and satellite television, produced low-resolution interlaced signals. On a large projection screen, scan lines and motion artifacts became highly visible. A line quadrupler processed and scaled those signals, quadrupling the scan lines to approximately 1050p and producing a dramatically sharper image for large-format projection.
There was also a technical constraint that underscores just how specialized this equipment was: the high-resolution output from a line quadrupler could only be accepted by CRT projectors. Standard direct-view televisions of the era couldn’t receive the signal at all. The entire system, processor and projector together, was purpose-built for a single application.
Early Whole-House Automation and Lighting Control
The residence also incorporated centralized control of lighting, HVAC, and security systems from a unified interface.
In 1997, systems of this type were still uncommon in residential construction and required significant planning during framing and electrical installation. The automation was centered around early Crestron controls integrated with the original Lutron HomeWorks lighting control system.
HomeWorks was among the first true luxury residential lighting control systems ever brought to market. It is still considered the benchmark for sophisticated lighting control, and the original system was far from the app control we enjoy today. The original system used centralized dimming panels, keypad controls, and custom-programmed lighting scenes.
Lighting scenes, HVAC coordination, and theater controls had to be integrated manually across multiple systems and vendors. Installations like this were generally reserved for commercial buildings and the Old Adobe home was our first experience bringing the technology to a residential estate.
Engineering the Exterior Water Features
The exterior landscape introduced an entirely different kind of complexity.
The property included a koi pond and a lazy-river-style water feature constructed using approximately eighty tons of concrete and steel. To support aquatic life and maintain water clarity, the system incorporated a custom biological filtration setup designed specifically for the project. Unlike decorative ponds commonly seen in residential landscaping, systems of this scale required ongoing circulation, filtration, structural waterproofing, and long-term environmental balance.
The surrounding landscape, a visual counterpoint to the engineered water system, used native plantings selected by the homeowner, following a lifelong passion for native California landscaping.
Behind the pool house was a goat shed and enclosed pen. Unusual for a residential property in Palo Alto even today, but consistent with the broader character of the project: a home designed around the owners’ actual lives and passions.
Building Before the Standards Existed
One of the most significant things about projects like Old Adobe was how little standardization existed at the time.
Today, many luxury home technologies are designed around common platforms and established installation practices. In the late 1990s, lighting controls, automation systems, projection equipment, HVAC integration, and security systems were frequently built around proprietary hardware and custom wiring layouts. Making them work together required direct coordination between manufacturers, programmers, and specialty installers. And most of that coordination had to be invented on the job, each project was a beta.
