In the wsj. Why it needs to be so expensive is hard to understand
By Cecilie Rohwedder
Oct. 2, 2019 10:25 am ET
Every Friday night, as Shabbat starts in Jay and Lauren Hofstatter’s home in Boca Raton, Fla., all televisions automatically shut down, ground-floor lights come on and bedroom lights switch off. A cozy home theater, closed off during the week, is programmed to unlock—not for watching television but for family time after the evening meal.
The system will respond when Yom Kippur, the highest Jewish holiday, begins on the evening of Oct. 8. Linked to a cloud-based Hebrew calendar, it will set lighting and electronics to a “no touch” mode, because Orthodox Judaism bans handling lights and electronics on religious holidays and Shabbat.
“I love technology,” says Mr. Hofstatter, 34 years old and president of online retailer Daily Sale, based in Pompano Beach, Fla. “When we decided to go with a home-automation system, we knew there had to be something out there that adapts to the Jewish lifestyle.”
The living room combines an old-world fireplace with more glamorous old Hollywood accents, says Christine Sullivan, the designer.
The living room combines an old-world fireplace with more glamorous old Hollywood accents, says Christine Sullivan, the designer.PHOTO: ZAK BENNETT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Much of the Hofstatters’ 2-year-old home has been designed for their Orthodox Jewish life: With eight bedrooms and seven baths, the 8,800-square-foot house is big enough for the couple’s eight children. It is a short walk from the synagogue to prevent long treks in the Florida heat on Shabbat, when driving is prohibited. And its home-automation system is so advanced that the motion detectors turn off on Shabbat to prevent the system from responding to different movements by family members that would activate the network.
Use of technology fine-tuned to support highly specialized needs reflects the growing sophistication in home systems. So-called smart homes—with easy, electronic control of lighting, temperature, shades and security—are becoming complex bespoke systems that fit homeowners’ individual habits and lifestyles.
Chowmain Software & Apps, an Australia-based software developer that built the software connecting the Hofstatters’ system to the Hebrew calendar, also offers a version for Muslim homeowners who want to program their homes to notify them of the call to prayer five times a day.
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Jay and Lauren Hofstatter—she is now 33—moved to Boca Raton in January 2007 from Brooklyn, N.Y. Newly married and pregnant with their oldest daughter, Deena, they initially chose a rental house near the Boca Raton synagogue but, as their family grew, moved three more times before deciding to build.
One of the home’s eight bedrooms.
One of the home’s eight bedrooms.PHOTO: ZAK BENNETT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
A guest bedroom in the Hofstatter home.
A guest bedroom in the Hofstatter home.PHOTO: ZAK BENNETT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The children’s bedrooms have themes. The boys’ room is about space.
The children’s bedrooms have themes. The boys’ room is about space. PHOTO: ZAK BENNETT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
In one daughter’s bedroom, the walls are hand-painted with vintage-style flowers.
In one daughter’s bedroom, the walls are hand-painted with vintage-style flowers.PHOTO: ZAK BENNETT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
In July 2010, they bought a one-third acre lot for $440,000, according to real-estate website Zillow, razed the dated house on it and started a 13-month construction project, briefly interrupted by a hurricane. Smart-home wiring began when the house was little more than a shell of concrete-block walls. Juan Apraez, chief technology officer at All Digital, a home-automation company in Weston, Fla., spent hours with Mr. Hofstatter to grasp the family’s numerous specific needs before researching and installing the $250,000 system.
“We have to have a very intimate connection with the client to understand how they live and what they want,” says marketing director Maria Eraso Taylor, who is married to Mr. Apraez and owns the business with him. “This is not like someone laying a new floor.”
When the $2.5 million Mediterranean-style house was finished in 2017, with different colors, themes and hand-painted ceilings in each of the kids’ rooms, the home-automation system was set to a tight schedule.
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As Shabbat and holidays begin at sunset and ground-floor lights switch on, those in the master bedroom—also on the ground floor—go off. One exception: a reading lamp that goes on and then is shut off at midnight when the parents go to sleep. Upstairs bedrooms enter a “good-night mode” that turns bedroom lights off and bathroom lights on.
Now, Mr. Hofstatter is planning another tweak to the system: programming speakers throughout the house to alert the family before the customary candle lighting at the start of Shabbat. Mr. Hofstatter got the idea from his hometown of Brooklyn, where sirens go off in Jewish neighborhoods, one 15 minutes before Shabbat and one immediately before. He is still deciding whether his should be an announcement or a musical chime
