The title Renaissance Man is best used sparingly. Appropriately reserved for rare individuals who possess the uncommon combination of knowledge, taste, style and culture, it aptly describes the entrepreneurial owner of this Tuscanesque villa in an upscale Orlando suburb—a home perfectly balanced in old-world grandeur and functional elegance.

Intricate moldings, hand-carved fireplaces, gold-leafed ceilings and a cache of world-class antiques establish a refined, elegant tableau throughout the 11,000-square-foot masterpiece. Nestled in an exclusive enclave on the Butler Chain of Lakes, the custom home is the permanent residence of a successful businessman, an architectural self-portrait of its multitalented owner.

This upstairs retreat serves as the game room/media room, and features a Pioneer rear-projection HDTV. (Click image to enlarge)

“Everything about this home speaks to the owner’s refined tastes—his fondness for European food, art and travel, and his affinity for relaxed, gracious entertaining,” says Senior Design Director Peter Ferwerda of Marc-Michaels Interior Design in Winter Park, Fla.; the firm provided complete interior design services with Senior Architectural Designer Shannan Puschmann Goforth. “The homeowner wanted a time-honored opulence balanced with informality, all assembled within a comfortable context.”

Because the home has countless gathering spaces, however, Ferwerda deviated a bit from the old-world theme in the more casual spaces, such as the billiard room and home theater, to create an element of surprise and interest.

“We took a clean-lined traditional tack with those areas to lighten them up,” Ferwerda says. The multifaceted theater honors the home’s refined sensibility and expert craftsmanship, yet has a relaxed tone that’s perfect for lounging alone and informal entertaining. “Our goal was to design a functional, flexible retreat that contains all the elements of a state-of-the-art home theater disguised in a very untheater-like setting,” Puschmann Goforth says.

Because the theater is just off the kitchen and family room on the home’s main floor, Ferwerda colored the space with a vibrant, organic palette of autumnal gold, tangerine and sage that complements the adjoining rooms’ hues. A combination of seating options, paired with exotic accent pieces, lends a comfortable and personal feel, while tactile wall coverings and sisal carpeting add an extra dimension of texture and warmth. Directly opposite the seating, a wall of custom-built maple cabinetry conceals most of the media components and displays collectibles; a retractable projector and drop-down screen are discreetly tucked within the trusses and ceiling above.

Screen Up: The home theater doubles as a casual space. For ordinary viewing, a 46-inch rear-projection TV provides the picture, and Atlantic Technology speakers built into the cabinet below provide the sound.

Screen Down: For full-bore home theater, a motorized Stewart screen descends to display images from a Runco video projector.

(Click images to enlarge)

The space’s arrangement is intelligently flexible: The room invites entertainment for up to eight guests, but is equally hospitable for such solitary occupations as watching ABC’s Good Morning America or revisiting Shakespeare’s Richard III. Absolute Sound’s co-owner Ted Hollander, whose Winter Park, Fla., firm designed and installed the audiovisual system, recalls the owner’s intent for the space to “surprise guests with the theater components, not overwhelm them.”

“From the outset, he communicated his desire for an atypical format,” Hollander explains. “Thankfully, the room was originally planned as a home theater so specifications for built-ins and wiring were perfected early in the framing stage.”

An oversized sectional sofa anchors the main seating arrangement, which parallels the rear wall. The piece is upholstered in deep rust chenille accented with a cut velvet-print overlay and lavishly fringed tapestry pillows. Customized to fit the room’s angles, the sofa rests subtly atop a 6-inch-tall platform that ensures uninterrupted visibility. One step below, bathed in sumptuous black leather, a pair of engulfing round Churchill chairs provide a second level of seating. Nubby wall-to-wall carpeting in a gold-and-black flecked pattern helps soundproof the room, as does the raffia wall covering.

A custom, hexagonal-shaped cocktail table and small end table sport practical and stylish tabletops of a lacquered linen-like fabric impervious to stains and spills. A carved teak Bible box and a bronze antique rain table—a one-of-a-kind occasional piece—provide symmetry at opposite ends of the sofa.

Additionally, the theater system is disguised to coalesce with the home’s old-world look. The designers’ plans involved a retracting projector and a drop-down screen; the elaborate tray ceiling, lined in raffia and detailed with a grid of stained-wood molding, camouflages the projector’s lift base. “Our main challenges were how and where to conceal the equipment,” Puschmann Goforth says, adding that the room’s dimensions—roughly 20 by 16 feet—are a bit smaller than the typical 30-by-20-foot or larger theaters the firm usually designs.

Although the fireplace flue was moved to accommodate a deeper, CRT-type TV, the homeowner later decided on a plasma TV for the space above the fireplace. (Click image to enlarge)

The room’s location along the home’s front façade also prohibited some of the typical alternatives of enclosing the projector in a pilaster or burying it in a wall. The solution involved a system, based on a Runco DTV-992 CRT video projector installed on a motorized Display Devices Datalift system, strategically recessed into the trusses. Limited attic space necessitated dropping the ceiling about 18 inches to allow for adequate retraction space.

A dropped soffit bordering the room’s perimeter softens its scale while providing a space from which the 54-by-96-inch Stewart Luxus wide-ration screen descends. Instead of tucking into cabinetry, the screen juts out just a bit in front of the built-in to accommodate a 46-inch television housed behind pocket doors in the unit’s center, which the owner requested for easy daily access. A trapdoor-style motorized drop-down screen reveals just the hint of a ceiling seam. Meticulously detailed crown molding accentuated with cove lighting conceals where the recessed screen pockets into the ceiling. The same raffia-textured wall covering, which conceals the seam, provides a degree of soundproofing and lends warmth to the room.

A Middle Atlantic rack rail system fits beautifully within the multipurpose cabinetry behind the screen. Custom rack faces lend an attractive appearance, and black grille cloth camouflages the speakers. A Crestron touchscreen controls the audio, video, projector lift, screen operation, draperies and lighting.

Builder Rial Jones, also in Orlando, one of the owners of Jones-Clayton Construction, adds that the room’s versatile format speaks to a growing trend for flexible high-end spaces. “It’s been our experience that rooms like this one—a combination media room and theater—are utilized much more frequently than those outfitted as traditional home theaters,” he says.

In conclusion, the house’s flexibility of space combines well with the old-world details evidenced in its architecture and design—from hand-picked antiques to the hand-glazed stucco that replicates an antique lime finish on the home’s exterior, and the lavish collection of fully mature, 30-foot-tall Italian cypress trees. It all comes together to portray a time-honored ambiance in line with the home’s rustic, Mediterranean theme. “We wanted to create the impression of a Tuscan winery that had existed for a few hundred years,” Jones says.