Ward Parkway · Historic estates
Ward Parkway · big houses, long runs, nothing showing.
IntegrateIT is a smart home and AV installer serving the Ward Parkway corridor of Kansas City, Missouri, a straightforward drive northeast from the design center at 15108 Glenwood Ave, Overland Park. These are large masonry and stucco houses with long interior distances and heavy wall construction, so the network is cabled by level and by wing, lighting goes into existing boxes, audio is concealed. Control4 Platinum Dealer, Crestron Elite Partner, Lutron Certified Dealer, CEDIA member, HTA Certified. Five-year workmanship warranty. (913) 804-7575.
Ward Parkway is a boulevard before it is an address. The corridor runs south from the Country Club Plaza through the residential district J.C. Nichols developed in the 1920s and 1930s, lined with substantial masonry and stucco estates on deep, formal lots in Kansas City, Missouri. These are large houses with long interior distances, heavy wall construction and finished lower levels, and their owners tend to be the second or third family to live in them. It is a straightforward drive northeast from our Overland Park design center.
Installing in Ward Parkway
What is different about Ward Parkway houses
Installing here is different because the runs are long and the walls are heavy. A house along this corridor can put a hundred feet and two floors between the equipment room and the far bedroom, through masonry, plaster and old chimney chases that were never meant to carry cable. We route the whole path before quoting, using stacked closets, the attic and the basement as the spine, and we budget the time these pulls actually take instead of pricing them like a modern house.
Formality raises the standard for what shows. Paneled libraries, plaster crown, stone fireplaces and original hardware mean a misaligned faceplate or an unnecessary keypad is immediately visible, and there is no drywall to hide a mistake. We lay out keypads as a set rather than one room at a time, engrave them so nobody guesses, and place speakers where the ceiling structure and the room's symmetry agree. Fewer visible devices, better placed, is the goal.
Third, the finished lower level is the natural home for a theater and for the rack. Ceiling height in these basements is usually workable, the rooms are enclosed and quiet, and mechanical space is nearby. That last point matters: an equipment rack in a large house generates real heat, so it goes somewhere with ventilation and service access rather than into a closet under a stair. Getting that right is what keeps the system alive for years.
The kind of work we do in Ward Parkway
- 01
Whole-house lighting control and shading through a historic estate, keypads laid out as one set
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A theater built into a finished lower level with acoustic treatment planned into the room
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A ventilated, serviceable equipment room replacing gear packed into a closet
What we install in Ward Parkway
The full integration stack — designed to disappear.
Before you call anyone in Ward Parkway
We wrote down the parts most people learn the expensive way.
How to choose a home automation company
The questions worth asking before you sign with anyone — including us. What a dealer tier actually buys you, and what happens in year four.
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What a home theater really costs
A media room, a dedicated theater and a reference build are three different projects. What separates two identical basements is the room, not the equipment list.
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How long does a smart home system last?
What ages out first, roughly when, and which decisions at install time push the replacement date out by a decade.
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Questions from Ward Parkway homeowners
Can you run new cable through a house built in the twenties?
- Usually, but the route matters more than the equipment. We look for stacked closets, existing chases, attic access and basement joist bays, and we walk the full path before quoting so the price reflects real work. Where masonry blocks a run, we use wireless lighting control in that room rather than opening a wall we cannot restore to the standard the house deserves.
How do you keep keypads from ruining a formal room?
- By planning them as a set and using as few as the house actually needs. We choose finishes with your designer, engrave the buttons so the function is obvious, and align them to the switch heights already in the room. In a paneled or plastered space we will often move a control to an adjacent wall rather than break a symmetry the architect intended.
Where should the equipment go in a house this size?
- Somewhere ventilated, dry and reachable, usually in or near the lower-level mechanical space. A full rack in a large home puts out real heat, and closets under stairs trap it, which shortens the life of everything inside. Good placement also means a service visit takes minutes rather than requiring furniture to be moved.
Someone else installed our system years ago. Will you support it?
- Yes. We take over Control4, Lutron and Crestron systems whose original installer is gone. The first step is a visit to document what is in the walls and racks, followed by a clear account of what is worth keeping and what has reached end of life.
We also serve
Ward Parkway consultation
Tell us about your Ward Parkway project.
Consultations are by appointment. We'll spend an hour walking through your space, talking about how you live, and sketching what's possible — at no cost, no pitch.