Austin · West Lake Hills, Texas
Smart Home, Lighting & AV in West Lake Hills.
Hillside lots where the city caps impervious cover, protects even small trees, and requires exterior equipment to be screened and quiet. West Lake Hills asks for a system that is planned into the site before the drive goes in.
West Lake Hills, Specifically
Planned Into the Hillside.
West Lake Hills limits impervious cover on single-family lots of half an acre or more to 25 percent, ties the allowance to slope, protects even small trees, and requires exterior compressors and other mechanical equipment to be screened with vegetation and insulated for sound. A generator pad, an outdoor equipment cabinet, and the conduit to a pool house all count against those rules.
The city is the only one entirely inside the Eanes school district, most of its mid-century houses have been remodeled or replaced by larger custom builds, and its 12-month median sale price passed $3 million. Google Fiber signed right-of-way agreements with West Lake Hills and Rollingwood in 2023, and the city's own fire plan treats it as a wildland-urban interface, which shapes where equipment and fixtures go outside.
01 · Site
Cover, Trees, and Screening
Equipment pads count as impervious cover, trenching near protected trees needs care, and exterior equipment must be screened and quiet. We put the generator, the cabinet, and the conduit on the site plan before the drive and the planting are drawn.
02 · Power
Built for the Grid
Austin Energy cut power to about 220,000 customers under ERCOT's load shedding in February 2021. A generator sized for the house and a battery-backed rack keep the network, the control system, and the cameras up when the grid is not.
03 · Fire
A Wildland Interface
West Lake Hills' own evacuation plan treats the city as wildland-urban interface terrain. Outdoor fixtures, enclosures, and cable paths are chosen with ignition-resistant materials and defensible space in mind.
At a Glance
West Lake Hills in brief.
- Impervious cover
- West Lake Hills caps impervious cover on single-family lots of half an acre or larger at 25 percent, and the allowance falls as the lot gets steeper.
- Exterior equipment
- A city ordinance requires all exterior compressors and other mechanical equipment to be screened with vegetation, shielded, and insulated so that sound does not carry; the tree ordinance protects even small trees.
- Housing stock
- Many parcels began as mid-century or ranch houses since remodeled or replaced by larger custom builds; the city is the only one lying entirely within the Eanes Independent School District.
- Market
- The 12-month median sale price reached about $3,067,418 at $751 per square foot across 42 closings, and new construction is listed from roughly $3.5 to $4.5 million upward.
- Electric service
- Austin Energy, the municipal utility, had about 220,000 customers lose power during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 under ERCOT-mandated load shedding.
- Internet
- Google Fiber signed right-of-way agreements with West Lake Hills in March 2023 and with Rollingwood, and began building fiber in both cities; AT&T Fiber and Spectrum also serve the area.
- Wildfire
- The city's fire evacuation route plan treats West Lake Hills as wildland-urban interface terrain, heavily wooded with roads that complicate evacuation.
Sources: City of West Lake Hills, impervious cover; Kelsey Easton, building in Westlake Hills; City of West Lake Hills, screening of exterior equipment; Jamie Novak Group, West Lake home values; West Lake Hills, Texas (Wikipedia); Neuhaus Real Estate, West Lake Hills market data; Darsh Real Estate, Westlake Hills new construction; KUT, the city's February 2021 outage audit; Community Impact, Google Fiber in Rollingwood and West Lake Hills; City of West Lake Hills, fire evacuation route plan.
Reading for West Lake Hills
Guides and work nearby.
- Generator and UPS planning for the rack →
How we size standby power for the systems and the house.
- Structured wiring for a house that will last →
- Planning AV and control into new construction →
- Lighting control: deciding the intent before the drawings →
- What an estate network costs →
- The complete security stack for a house →
What We Install and Service
Every System. One Keypad.
Lighting & Shades
Lutron HomeWorks, Ketra and Rania light, Palladiom keypads, and shades that disappear into the ceiling.
Lighting →Whole-Home Control
Crestron and Lutron on one set of keypads and touchscreens, programmed the same way in every house you own.
Residential →Cinema & Music
Dedicated theaters, media rooms, and music in every room without a speaker in sight.
Residential →Network
Enterprise Wi-Fi and fiber sized for a large house, guest houses, and the far end of the lawn.
Networking →Security & Gate
Cameras, access control, gate intercom, and an alarm that a UL-listed central station answers.
Security →Outdoors
Landscape lighting and outdoor sound on one buried infrastructure, on the same keypad as the house.
Outdoor →Upgrades
Older Crestron and Lutron systems brought current, reusing the wiring already in the walls wherever possible.
Upgrade paths →Support
Monitoring, remote fixes, and priority response under one plan.
Cave Watch →Questions From West Lake Hills
West Lake Hills, Answered
Who installs Lutron and Crestron systems in West Lake Hills?+–
Cave Group does. We are a Crestron Elite Gold Partner and Lutron Gold Dealer based in New York, and we design, install, and service lighting control, shades, cinema, audio, networking, security, and backup power for houses in West Lake Hills and Rollingwood on a project basis, on site with Texas-licensed trades.
How does a New York firm work on an Austin house?+–
On a project basis. Our offices are in New York and New Jersey; the design and the drawings happen with your architect and builder from there and in person at the key milestones, the installation and commissioning happen on site, and Cave Watch supports the system around the clock afterward. The licensed trades Texas requires, a licensed electrical contractor for line-voltage work and a Department of Public Safety licensed security contractor for monitored alarm work, are local.
Where can a generator and outdoor equipment go on a West Lake Hills lot?+–
Where the impervious-cover allowance, the tree ordinance, and the screening ordinance all permit, which is why they go on the site plan first. Pads count against the 25 percent cover limit, trenching near protected trees needs care, and the city requires exterior mechanical equipment to be screened with vegetation and insulated for sound. We place and size the generator with the licensed electrician who pulls the permit.
What about the grid?+–
Standby power is part of the design here, not an option. Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 took power from about 220,000 Austin Energy customers under ERCOT's load shedding, and the February 2023 ice storm left more than 170,000 without power, some for over ten days. We size a generator and a battery-backed rack for the network, the control system, the cameras, and the house, and plan the permit, the setbacks, and the noise limits with the licensed electrician.
Which internet providers serve West Lake Hills?+–
Austin is unusual: AT&T Fiber, Google Fiber, and Astound compete with Spectrum, and in West Lake Hills and Rollingwood Google Fiber signed right-of-way agreements in 2023. We confirm what reaches the address, and on larger properties we design for two connections with automatic failover, so a single outage does not take the house offline.
Start Here
Walk the House With Us.
Bring the drawings if the house is on paper, or the list of what no longer works if it is already built. We will tell you what we would do, in what order, what it would take, and how we run an Austin project from New York.
Start a Projector call · +1 (888) 712-2283 · [email protected]