Exquisite Home Residence - Converted 18th Century Church

Image Gallery - Marks Residence - Converted from an 18th Century Church

It was a task of Herculean proportions. Dean Marks always had an unquenchable desire to create something unusual to live in. And when Dean discovered the dilapidated 18th century St Martin’s church in Tipton in the Black Country he realized he had met his calling.  But not content with choosing a Grade II list building to resurrect into a family home he decided to perform all the building work himself! 

“When we discovered St Martin’s we knew it was the right one” said Dean. “The building had been empty for years. The tower had been lost to bombing during the war. But its sheer size it was exciting. It was huge. But the hoops we had to jump through were huge as well”.

From the start it was a big challenge. Although he managed to negotiate the church down from their initial asking price of $50,000 to $24,500 he still had to fight for four years get planning permission to renovate this magnificent building. And even when granted there were some very restrictive conditions on what could be done.

The church had a Methodist layout: a gallery on three sides overhanging the ground floor supported by columns rising from the floor. A key restriction of the planning consent was that this balcony could not be touched. This meant that the whole of the living space had to be constructed around this ruling.

To make the project work for the first floor a raft of artificial floors where created to provide a level surface around the gallery. It also meant that all the room sizes on the ground floor would be dictated by the position of the pillars.

However, the result is a huge house boasting 6 bedrooms, an indoor swimming pool and to literally top it off, a glass roof observatory on top of the church tower.

As the character and design of the building is vitally important to Dean he has tried to restore and reuse existing features and marry these to latest technology, where it can help, to transform this disused church into a home.

The pews where not thrown out, as happens in so many church conversation but rather lovingly recycled.  As well as the skirting boards and architraves, the pews, now cleaned and restored, also make up the wall paneling and some of the work surfaces in the bespoke kitchen to provide an unorthodox link with the past.

Restored and reinstated the stain glass windows now provide a dazzling feature in each of the rooms they service. But as well as light Dean has invested in a state of the art sound system to feed AV and data throughout the house from a central technology hub.

And for the in-room elivery of the audio Dean has used Amina Plaster In-wall speakers throughout the house to provide a totally discrete sound system.

Dean explains, "When I came across the Aminas I thought they were amazing. A totally invisible loud speaker! I just knew I wanted them in. This was going to be my dream house and I wanted to make sure that it had all the bells and whistles when it was done."
Dean decided on Amina loudspeakers in each of the main rooms, a total of 16 pairs. But with doing all the work himself, Dean is an accomplished builder, he was a little concerned about the install.

“My main concern was how I was going to install them as it was me who would be doing all the work. But in the end it all proved to be pretty easy. In both walls and in the ceilings.”

Dean explains how they did it. “We had a pretty good idea in which rooms we wanted them and whereabouts in each room. So when it came to first fix we just laid the audio wires in at the same time.  We had spoken to Amina and they suggested we just put in the dry wall and ceilings and then "retro fit them."

"Looking back it was quite an easy job. We offered up the speakers to the plasterboard, scribed around and cut out the stencil of the loudspeaker to leave a hole.  We then screwed in the lugs supplied with the speakers. It surprised us that the speakers are actually attached to the plasterboard via these lugs – not attached to the studs. But it made the whole job a lot quicker.

Then when I installed the speakers it was just making sure that each was flush with the plaster board. We used some joint tape around the speakers so that it overlapped with the plasterboard and covered the join. A plaster skim layer later and they where done. Now we’ve decorated it’s impossible to tell where they are. All you can hear is the music."

So what makes these speakers so different and how do they do it?

Firstly, Amina loudspeakers work in a different way to traditional loudspeakers. Standard loudspeakers pump in and out like a piston to move the air and create the sound. Instead, Aminas recreate sound the way that a musical instrument does – like an acoustic guitar, piano or violin. 

In these instruments it is not the strings that make the sound but the vibrations created in the body of the instrument. The Amina loudspeakers mimic this, setting up a vibrational element in the body of the wall or ceiling. Although the principle is the same Amina use the latest technology to enhance it.

The speakers use a special composite in their flat panels rather than wood and the strings are replaced by solid state exciters that precisely translate the output from your amplifier in to exact vibrations to recreate the audio you are playing

The vibrations create large areas of complex movement on the panel. These excite the air particles on the surface which then transfer the sound energy through other air particles until it reaches our ears. This not only provide a sound source that disappears seamlessly into a wall or ceiling, but also a compact, thin speaker with some extraordinary capabilities!

The vibrations created are truly tiny, even at 105db the movement is so small that you can’t see them with the naked eye. As these movements are so small and plaster is relatively flexible you can skim plaster over the speakers with a 1-2mm layer and the plaster will never crack. The surface can then be decorated with paint or even wallpaper so that the speakers become invisible.

An added advantage of this technology is that as the vibrations are not created in one mass but in “pockets” across the face of the speaker. This means the acoustic energy is distributed over a far wider area in a highly diffuse manner which has the advantage that your whole space (even big open plan rooms) is filled with natural sound.

Dean has not only used the speakers to provide room filling sound in some of the larger spaces but because the speakers are protected by their plaster skim layer he has fitted them in traditionally wet environments: bathrooms and  kitchens where he doesn’t worry about moisture ingress or cleaning them!

The result at St Martins is an amazing family home equipped with the latest Home Automation and Audio Visual technology but nurturing and incorporating the iconic features of this historic building.

Equipment List
16 x Amina AIWX Series Invisible Speakers
Nuvo Concerto 16 way central Control Unit
4 x Freeview systems networked through the house
8 Way Distributed Radio receiver
Sony 300 disc Cd player
Wall mounted control panels for AV in each room
VCR unit
Digital DVD recorder
Standard DVD player
CCTV Control system
Nuvo 16 way Amplifier system