This villa in Marbella oozes luxury throughout its vast space, which includes a high-performance cinema and a bar area. Amy Stoneham has a look around.
Just looking at this room, it is clear that luxury and high-end were common themes in this project. With a simple brief that the client’s basement of his Marbella villa was to be turned into a home cinema, integrator, Illusion, combined its knowledge of interior design, lighting, and audio and video solutions to transform the space into a luxurious multipurpose entertainment area.
With 75sqm of open space to play with, the integrator suggested that a bar area could be included in the room too, still leaving plenty of room for a high-performance home cinema system for the family and guests to enjoy.
Starting in summer of 2022, the project was completed by Christmas, ready for the family to enjoy home entertainment in their newly refurbished basement over the winter months.

Clear expectations
Having previously worked on other areas of the house with the previous owner, Illusion was asked to return to the property for the addition of the home entertainment space.
“The customer had a clear idea of wanting a cinema room where he could enjoy watching his favourite content via streaming channels,” says Victor Periáñez, founder and managing director of Illusion. “We had great communication with the client and his project manager from the very beginning and understood his expectations.”
The new homeowner already owned an integrated sound control system which gave him some knowledge of home entertainment systems. But Illusion worked closely with the homeowner to understand exactly what his needs and expectations of the room were and was then able to specify the most appropriate equipment.
“This could have been an issue initially, but we took advantage of it to place the equipment in a strategic manner.”
Periáñez states: “As with all our clients, the first step we take is to arrange a meeting with a member of our team. In this first point of contact, we listen to the client and enquire about their needs and expectations, offering guidance in the types of services we can provide. In most cases, this takes place at our Experience Centre, where many of the solutions we provide can be experienced first-hand.

“With the information we exchange with the client in this meeting, a more detailed proposal is drawn up, including plans, design presentations and quotations, which is then presented to the customers. Once this is approved, the project starts under the supervision of one of our experienced project managers, who takes care of coordinating all departments involved in the execution.”
It was also important that the system installed had to be easy to use for the entire family and any guests that may use the room. “In many of our projects we are not certain about who will be using the equipment we install, so therefore we aim to provide installations with a user interface that is as intuitive as possible so that anyone can enjoy it with ease,” Periáñez continues. “The system is programmed to have the same functionality throughout for the homeowner, the multiple members of his family, and any guests that potentially visit.”
With a lot of space to play with, the bar area was added on during the design phase. “With larger dimensions than usual, the space allowed us to add a fully equipped bar area for the enjoyment of our customers, with a refrigerator and wine cellar, and with custom-made furniture for a timeless design,” Periáñez explains.

Audio illusions
Performance, entertainment and luxury design stood out as key elements when building this home entertainment system. The feel of the space had to match the idyllic location of the villa while creating an immersive home cinema experience and luxury bar using high-performance equipment and AV.
Despite the vast space, when designing the room, the integrator recognised a possible concerning factor with the room. “It was an already existing disused room, but it presented some irregularities due to an unsymmetrical architecture,” clarifies Periáñez. “This could have been an issue initially, but we took advantage of it to place the equipment in a strategic manner. We used wooden panels to achieve a more symmetrical room and took advantage of the spaces that remained between the original walls and the panels to hide the speakers and other visible elements to achieve a more integrated appearance.”
Using a mix of James Loudspeaker in-wall and on-wall loudspeakers and subwoofers with Sonance in-ceiling and performance speakers, the theatre has a 7.2.2 speaker configuration to create an immersive soundscape.
Another challenge was realised when it came to acoustics and speaker placement as the left wall is entirely glass. Periáñez illustrates: “Given the width of the room and the fact that the left wall consisted of windows where we couldn’t place any speakers, we opted to place our sound system in the front, rear and ceiling, along with a front (hidden) and rear subwoofer for an incredible sound experience.”
“The inability to physically separate this area from the rest of the room presented an acoustic challenge.”
The size of the room required careful planning to achieve a great acoustic experience due to the vast open space. “The space was fairly large (75sqm), but the area allocated to the home cinema was only 64sqm,” Periáñez explains. “The inability to physically separate this area from the rest of the room presented an acoustic challenge. The distribution of each building element that was part of the cinema room was taken into account to avoid concave areas where sound concentration could occur, especially for high and medium frequencies. In this way, we also avoided possible ‘flutter echoes’ that occur in large rooms with parallel reflecting walls.”

He continues: “The materials used in the home cinema room were chosen according to their sound absorption qualities to control the reverberation time and maintain the neutrality of the audio. The layout and detailed selection of the different construction elements also plays an important role. With a high-density curtain, carpeting and acoustic panels of wood and velvet distributed throughout the room, we achieved the desired degree of acoustic isolation.”
Including the bar area within the room meant other considerations needed to be taken into account. To create the immersive, high-end home cinema experience, the system would be capable of playing audio at high levels which could cause vibrations.
“One of the main difficulties when carrying out a project with high sound level elements was to avoid the vibrations of the different elements that make up the project, especially the metal shelving of the bar,” says Periáñez. “To do this, an incredible amount of work to reinforce the structure that supported each element was carried out.”
Working with the audio system, Illusion installed a Sony VW790ES projector and a 160” screen from Screen Research for the visual performance. The projector’s laser technology offers one of the best images in home cinema, thanks to its long lifespan compared to lamp based projectors.

Other elements
With the left hand wall being made entirely of glass, keeping natural light out of the room during movie time was paramount.
“Another challenge was to guarantee the darkness of the room by completely eliminating any hint of natural light coming through the window,” Periáñez adds. “We have achieved this thanks to the Lutron Alena motorised track solution and a custom-made curtain for this project, made up of a combination of blackout and velvet. The curtain opens and closes automatically with the push of a button on the elegant wall-mounted button panel, or with minimal pressure on the fabric.”
“It also prevented overheating by louvred doors, which allows for ventilation.”
Cineak cinema seating was used to add even more elegance to the room. Consistent with the high-end feel, the armchairs even have their own control panels located on the arms to allow simple and intuitive control of the different seat adjustments for extra comfort.
The equipment running the cinema is housed in technical cabinets under the counter in the bar area, accessible through the adjacent room. “This gave a few advantages,” Periáñez explains. “In case any maintenance is needed, technicians wouldn’t need to access the home cinema room. It also prevents overheating thanks to the louvred doors, which allows for ventilation.”
Control needed to be simple and easy to use for everyone. Therefore, Illusion chose to install a Crestron control system giving users unified control of the cinema and lighting from an iPad, keypad and remote control within the room.

After care & future plans
Illusion has a post-sales team that will take care of the project now it is completed as well as a team of technicians who exclusively take care of any maintenance and revisions needed. The company’s maintenance contract also means that Illusion proactively takes care of the finished installation to make sure everything is working properly at all times and systems stay up to date with the latest features.
With the multipurpose home entertainment room, and the old system already completed in the main house for the previous owner, the homeowner now has an appetite for home automation and technology. To create a more personalised experience tailored to his and his family’s needs, the client is now in talks with Illusion to upgrade his home system by adding new lighting, audio and control systems.

Tech Spec
Apple iPad
Apple TV
AudioControl
Cineak Cinema Seating
Crestron Control Systems
IPORT iPad Mount
James Loudspeaker C-1020 Subwoofers
James Loudspeaker OW63Q On-Wall Loudspeakers
James Loudspeaker QX630 In-Wall Loudspeakers
Lutron Alena Electric Curtains
Lutron Palladiom Keypad
Marantz SR8015 Amplifier
Screen Research 160” Screen
Sonance VP86R In-Ceiling Loudspeakers
Sonance VP86R SST Visual Performance Speakers
Sony VW790ES Projector