Canyon properties, Craftsman blocks and new construction beneath the San Gabriels — technology planned with the same care the town rebuilds with.
Altadena is unlike anywhere else we work: a town of deodars and oaks, of Craftsman porches and canyon driveways, and, in recent years, a community rebuilding street by street with remarkable resolve. Working here means two different crafts. In surviving historic homes, technology has to disappear into original plaster and woodwork. In new construction and rebuilds, the opportunity is bigger: plan the infrastructure while the walls are open, and the finished home will never need another cable pulled.
Framing is the one moment when everything is easy. We work alongside architects and general contractors to rough in conduit, structured wiring, speaker and camera locations, lighting control and a proper equipment closet — documented so any future trade can find it. The cost of doing this during construction is a fraction of retrofitting it later, and the result is a house that feels calm, not wired.
The foothills are hard on wireless: deep lots, stone fireplaces, long driveways, studios and ADUs at the back of the property. We design around the terrain — wired backhaul between buildings, access points tuned to the canyon environment, cameras and entry systems that reach the gate, and monitoring that keeps working when the power or the signal dips.
Altadena reads differently block by block. Around Janes Village and the Meadows the lots are modest and the houses sit close, so the questions are about clean routing and speakers that respect a quiet street. Along Mariposa and the streets beneath Christmas Tree Lane the deodars are magnificent and thoroughly opaque to wireless, which is why we cable to each level instead of adding another repeater. Toward Chaney Trail and Millard Canyon the driveways lengthen, the lots deepen, and a studio or ADU often sits at the back of the property, so a wired run to the outbuilding does more than any range extender. And across the rebuild blocks, framing is open right now, which is the one moment when everything is easy and inexpensive.
Foothill conditions shape the brief in ways the Westside does not see: stone fireplaces and thick chimneys that block signal, long gravel driveways where the gate needs its own link, and a power supply that cannot be taken for granted. We plan for all three rather than discovering them at commissioning.
More than you expect to need, because the second cable is nearly free while the walls are open. As a minimum: two network runs to every television, desk, ceiling access point and camera position, speaker cable to the rooms where music might ever matter, shade power at the head of the windows, and empty conduit from the equipment closet to the attic, the crawl space and the back of the lot.
Yes, and it is a large part of what we do here. Cabling runs through attics, basements and existing chases, in wall speakers are matched to the plaster, and keypads replace switch banks without changing the character of the room. Original woodwork stays untouched.
With a wired backhaul to each structure wherever the ground allows, and a point to point link where trenching is not realistic. Every building then gets its own access point, so the studio, the ADU and the main house share one network and one password rather than three.
The parts that matter can. Battery backup holds the network core and the gate, the cabling is arranged so a generator or home battery picks up the essentials, and cellular failover keeps cameras and climate reachable while the street is dark.