Project
Point Dume Home
Dume Drive, Point Dume, Malibu. Completed 2023. Architect: von Studnitz Architects. Ground-up rebuild after the 2018 Woolsey Fire. The owners…
Point Dume Home
Dume Drive, Point Dume, Malibu. Completed 2023. Architect: von Studnitz Architects. Ground-up rebuild after the 2018 Woolsey Fire.
The owners lost their house in the Woolsey Fire and rebuilt on the same land in three phases: a temporary camp on the lot, a prefabricated guest house, and then the main house at the back of the property. Buzo Electric Co carried the electrical and the automation on the main house as one scope, from the service and rough-in through the Lutron shades, the Josh AI voice layer, and the final programming.
The house
The plan is an L, set against the strong uphill ocean winds so the pool, decks, and courtyard sit in its lee. The main house is about 3,160 square feet with three bedrooms and a den, kept deliberately small so most of the floor area is one continuous public room. A 486-square-foot pool house closes the courtyard on the east side. The living space opens on both sides through frameless Sky-Frame sliding and pivoting glass walls, and the house has only six conventional windows; nearly all the other daylight comes through custom clerestory glass set frameless into a cedar ceiling that runs from inside to outside under the eaves. Walls are plaster, floors are wide-plank oak, counters and vanities are concrete, and the exterior is dark integral-color concrete plaster.
What that meant for the electrical
A house with almost no solid wall surface, no drywall, and a continuous timber ceiling plane leaves very few places for the things an electrical contractor normally hides. Device locations, keypads, and lighting had to be settled on the drawings with the architect, then held exactly through rough-in, because plaster does not forgive a moved box and a mitered cedar ceiling does not forgive a moved fixture. The glass walls pocket fully into the walls on the courtyard side, so the wall that would usually carry a switch bank is not there when the house is open. Motorized shade pockets, the pool house, the exterior decks, and the courtyard all ran as their own planned circuits and control zones rather than afterthoughts.
The hard part: opening the house by voice
The Sky-Frame sliders in the living area are motorized, and the owners wanted to open the house with a spoken command: all sides at once, or only the side away from the wind that day. Motorized architectural glass walls are not a standard device on a home control platform, so the door drives, the safety logic, and the voice commands had to be engineered to work together: a sentence spoken to Josh AI, a safe open-and-close sequence at each wall, and reliable state feedback so the house always knows which walls are open. It took coordination between the door manufacturer, the control programming, and the electrical behind both. Today the living room opens on a sentence.
Systems
Whole-home electrical, Josh AI voice control, Lutron motorized shades, by Buzo Electric Co, CSLB C-10 #1048529. Architecture by von Studnitz Architects.
If you are planning a new build or a fire rebuild in Malibu or on the Westside and want the electrical and the automation designed together, call (323) 252-7498, Monday through Friday, 7:00 to 15:00.
Related guide: new construction electrical — Complete Guide
Prefer to talk it through? Call (323) 252-7498 — a quick call is usually the fastest way to get a straight answer for your situation.
