When DeVan Shumway returned to Reston from a visit to the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood three years ago, he had a plan for his home entertainment center.
“I wanted something different,” he said. ”It served as inspiration.”
Recreating the Kodak Theatre in his home was no simple task. The carpeted room with a fireplace in the back of the basement had a small window that needed to be covered over. It didn’t seem the ideal location for a motorized velvet curtain, space for a sidewalk with handprints of the stars, stadium seating or a self-closing door.
“I challenged [the designer],” he said. “I wasn’t in a hurry. I wanted it to be right.”
He responded to an ad for home theaters by Details Home Services, whose owner, Corey Laws, had been building entertainment centers since the 1970s.
“I cut my teeth on hi-fi,” Laws said. “We did some special things on this job.”
His two biggest challenges were the motorized red velvet curtain and the self-closing door.
“I had to play around with the weights and the pulleys to make the pocket door close,” he said. The motorized curtain rod also vexed Laws — but he eventually made the red velvet move electronically.
Adhering to Shumway’s vision, he transformed an ordinary room into a mini-cinema with stadium seating that also serves as a tribute to motion pictures. Their fastidious attention to detail — which can be seen in the exactness of the Kodak logo above the screen and in the replica of the Theatre’s entrance — produced a spectacular result.
“I found this door handle on the Internet,” Shumway said. The 15-pound gold handle looked as if it came from the set of “Ben-Hur.”
The theater has its own unique special effects.
Funnel-shaped light sconces framed by 5-foot scarlet silhouettes of Oscar statues stand in the corners. The brown and red carpet features gold inset stars. Prints by Andy Warhol protege Steve Kaufman of Humphrey Bogart and Sean Connery as James Bond adorn one wall, while a mural of the “Hollywood” sign covers a section on the opposite side.
Under the base of the 110-inch projection screen are brownish-gray tiles. Two squares carry the actual handprints of two of Shumway’s favorite stars — his son and daughter.
“The tiles are reversible,” Laws said. “You can take them out. It’s pretty cool.”
Now teenagers, the Shumway children invite their friends over to watch movies.
“With my kids growing up, I just as soon have them entertain at home,” he said. “They can have sleepovers down here as well. The chairs recline.”
The seven lounge chairs also have speakers embedded in them called “butt kickers.” There are additional speakers in the walls to add fullness and dimension to the sound.
The picture’s not so bad either.
“It’s pretty phenomenal what you can see,” Shumway said as the projection screen revealed beads of sweat on Bruce Springsteen’s larger-than-life forehead during a concert.
Remote in hand, he switched to the movie “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” and the lights dimmed automatically.
“There are different settings for movies and sports,” he said. “My daughter has seen this one 100 times.”
Shumway likes comedies, but the first movie he watched was “Top Gun” for the action. As an owner of racehorses, he also likes “Seabiscuit.”
“I’d like to have the same thing happen to me someday,” he said.
If he selects horses with the same precision as he did in creating the theater, a winner’s circle could well be in his future.
