OTHER TECH

"If I give Jeffrey and Jimmy a spec sheet, they pull it apart and ask me for another one," says Chris. "Every bit of the way, they were, 'Why are you suggesting this?' So then I had to come back and give them my reasons. And Jimmy was researching everything. Whenever he read about something or saw something on the Internet, he'd say, 'Well, I saw this. Why can't we use it?'"

"We were very difficult," admits Jeffrey.

"I'm not saying difficult," Chris jumps in. "We had a lot of open communication between us."

That communication included the written type, too - pretty much daily. The S.E.A.L. team would arrive at the Chelsea co-op to find notes from the owners in red marker taped to various surfaces. On this particular day, a half-dozen or so pages hung in the apartment, with messages like, "There is a most disruptive beep sound [beep beep . . . beep beep . . . ] about every 15 minutes. I cannot find the source. Help, please. " (It turned out to be coming from either the microwave or the dishwasher, and it stopped as mysteriously as it started.)

Still, Chris feels this open-forum approach helped ensure that the installation would turn out well. "Jeffrey and Jimmy were such an important part of determining the ultimate design of the house."

"Chris is very good," adds Jeffrey. "We're very process-oriented. We needed to test everything, and we would have meetings and talk about it. He's been very accommodating."

And not just with Jimmy and Jeffrey. "The concept was a big challenge that necessitated getting together with all the different contractors," says Chris. "There were a lot of ideas that one contractor would say can't happen, but then I'm supposed to make them happen on my end. It was a little challenging finding the right components to interface with everything."

Speaking of which, some of Chris's obstacles were actually the normal, geeky kind. Trying, for instance, to get a Microsoft-powered media server to play nice with iTunes songs, so the guys would be able to transmit music from their iPods over the sound system. (Ultimately, he found a way to "trick" the system into accepting the AAC files.)

With the installation completed, the Kwok/Williams stage is set for whatever kind of show they want to put on. The living space blends the aesthetics of club lounge with boutique hotel - all very NYC, all very of-the-moment. Whites and silvers merge with zebra-wood floors and the occasional shimmering wall. And the beaded effect of those walls is highlighted by the Color Kinetics LEDs shining down them. The lights can be set to any color, rotate through a palette of hues, or show off all the colors at once, as a rainbow.

The LEDs also come into play during movie time. The Kinetics behind the huge roll-down Da-Lite screen can be set to glow on the white Draper blackout shades (azure seems pretty effective here), creating a Philips Ambilight kind of thing.

Splashing the image across that screen is a JVC 1080p D-ILA projector, which Chris says is an excellent value (it lists for $6,295), offering blacks he finds very impressive. (For the bedroom, Chris went with a Sharp 46-inch LCD HDTV, citing its clarity, brightness, deep black levels, and all-around "magnificent" picture.)