May 2011 - Illuminating Engineering Society

ASHFORD ESTATE
Urban meets rural as dance
club-style lighting is woven into the
bucolic architecture of a wedding
ballroom in New Jersey
BY PAUL TARRICONE
Photos courtesy of Fennelli Design Group
The Ashford Estate has an elegant name and a new wedding
ballroom with splashy interiors, but with its rustic surroundings
and architectural aesthetic, it wouldn’t be a surprise
if during the reception, the bride and groom led their
guests in a square dance instead of a line dance. Picture, if you
will, a hoedown under color-changing lights.
Improbable, yes, but possible when you consider the site’s split
personality. Situated on 28 acres of rustic farmland in Allentown, NJ,
the Ashford Estate encompasses a historic barn (used for ceremonies),
a 12-bedroom main house, a pond with gazebo, a tree-lined
driveway and the recently built wedding ballroom—a separate
structure measuring 85-ft long by 57-ft wide, which holds 250 guests.
The ballroom’s design is reminiscent of the neighboring barn
with peaked ceilings and dual slopes (36-ft high at the center and
14-ft high on the sides) found in its gambrel-style roof. But the
ballroom is as much urban night club as country inn. “The owner
wanted the whole room to light up at night and to change colors
when the bride walked in,” says lighting designer James Fennelli
of Fennelli Design Group, Allenton, NJ. “The owner has other
wedding reception halls and really wanted to wow people with
this one. He pointed out certain areas—the columns, coves and
ceiling—but he didn’t want to see the fixtures in these areas.” LED
luminaires comprise the lion’s share of the lighting, supplemented
by a limited application of incandescent and discharge sources.
Finding fixtures to fit the bill was difficult because Fennelli
insisted on using tri-color LEDs. “Each individual LED produces
each color—red, blue and green—so you won’t have a guest sitting
near a fixture who would see a red LED come on, then a blue
LED come on and then a green LED come on.” Instead, guests only
see the color-mixed end result throughout the room.
IT’S ALL IN THE WALLS
Three of the four walls in the rectangular building are lined with
windows offering a view of the grounds. The two longest walls each
have seven banks of picture windows separated by columns with an
archway above each window. An alcove sits between the top of the
picture window and the peak of the archway. In addition, overhead
beams sprout from the space where two archways meet (at their lowest
points) and visually extend the look of the columns upward.
These architectural details within the two long walls of the ballroom
provide the hiding places for the luminaires. “The fixtures were
built right into the building—into the architecture—permanently.
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