Some of you know Vic so I thought you would enjoy these articles about him
and his family.
Phil.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vic Llanes" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 4:17 PM
Subject: update
Hi Phil, it's been a long time. Much hardship has kept me silent and shelled
in, but God who keeps us from total despair did something for our family
lately. Our family was chosen for the ABC Extreme Makeover home edition. Our
church nominated us and we got selected out of tens of thousands. Though of
course we still have our problems and difficulties, this event is certainly
a welcome boon to our family. I'm pasting 2 articles below so I don't have
to tell the whole thing. Just a note: the show's acctual showing has been
change to some time September instead of summer as stated in articles.
Thank you brother Phil for all the prayers.
Always.
Vic.
A HOME WHERE THE WALLS HAVE EARS
May 14, 2006
The New York Times
A Home Where the Walls Have Ears
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
FOR the second "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" episode in New Jersey in a
month, ABC-TV producers found another family with extreme difficulties and
another
builder willing to go to extreme lengths to provide a new house within seven
days - this time, with an extreme helping of high technology.
At their new home in Bergenfield, the Llanes family will live like the
Jetsons. Its features will permit them to talk to wall monitors throughout
the home
to ask questions that can be looked up on the Internet and receive spoken
answers, or to adjust the temperature or run the vacuum with a spoken
command.
Four family members are blind or nearly so, and they will all be able to
operate the household systems.
Another family member is deaf, and he will be able to operate all household
systems by keypad and will have the advantage of vibrating alarms.
For an edition of the Sunday night "Extreme Makeover" show planned for this
summer, the production hired the Academy Award-winning actress Marlee
Matlin,
who is deaf, as a guest host, and recruited Pinnacle Homes, based in
Chatham, to run the construction project.
Pinnacle brought in a total of 3,000 workers - including its own employees,
subcontractors and associated businesses - to demolish the Llanes home at
141 New Bridge Road and then speedily rebuild it with what Pinnacle
executives described as "probably the most technology in a single home in
the country."
Two members of the Llanes family are blind and two are going blind because
of a hereditary eye disease called aniridia, which causes the eye to develop
without an iris. A 16-year-old son was born deaf after his mother contracted
German measles during pregnancy. The mother, Maria Llanes, the only family
member with full sight and hearing, was recently told she has thyroid
cancer.
The Llaneses' 50-year-old split-level house had become increasingly
problematic as family members' eyesight worsened, according to friends of
the family
who nominated them for the "Extreme Makeover" treatment. Cramped, with no
storage space, the house was impossible to organize for easy maneuvering.
Vicente, Maria's husband and the family patriarch, and his mother, Isabel,
who lives with the family, are both totally blind. The Llaneses' two
daughters,
19 and 12, are still able to make out shapes and colors, but the lack of
good light in the house limited their abilities.
Urban street noise presented such a major distraction for Vicente, a
computer technologist
that he could work only at night when things quieted down. "People who are
blind often tend to rely more strongly on their sense of hearing," Ms.
Matlin
noted during filming. "In his case, that became a constant irritant."
Furthermore, different family members' health issues collided inside the
little house. Carpeting might have helped to absorb sound for Vicente, for
example,
but it was out of the question for the Llaneses' son, Zeb, 16, who has
severe allergies.
Enter Pinnacle, which has a division that specializes in custom-built
"intelligent" homes. "Because of the special needs of this family," said the
company's
president, Brian M. Stolar, "our team used every conceivable contact to
assemble the most cutting edge technology - probably more than has ever been
assembled
in one domicile."
Mr. Stolar said the Llanes house is the ultimate example of his company's "Z
Home" concept, which represents Pinnacle's effort to take home-system
technology
as far as it can go. It features automated lighting, appliances, cameras,
security, heating and ventilation, air-conditioning, media, telephones and
intercom
- plus a secure wireless home network.
Pinnacle pulled in technology providers like Silicon East, Realcomm,
Microsoft, Automated Living, Intel, Sonic Wall, the National Federation for
the Blind
and BP Solar to donate materials and labor.
Other companies donated and installed products specifically designed to help
with sight and hearing: digital talking book players, Braille displays,
Braille
printers, bank note readers, portable computers for the blind and vibrating
alarms. Backup power for the systems is provided by solar panels on the roof
of the new house.
The new house was designed to offer strong light; sliding pocket doors
instead of traditional doors, which get in the way of the blind when left
open; and
soundproofing insulation to keep out street noise, Mr. Stolar said.
The house was turned over to the Llaneses this week when "Extreme Makeover
brought them home from a free Disney World vacation and staged the "reveal,"
the emotional crescendo of the show.
**********
NJ Jewish News | Local builder models tzedaka on home remodeling show
New Jersey Jewish News
Local builder models tzedaka on home remodeling show
Brian Stolar of Livingston, founder and CEO of Pinnacle Companies, in front
of the (almost) completed home in Bergenfield to be featured on Extreme
Makeover:
Home Edition this summer. Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
by
Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer
Builder Brian Stolar, founder and CEO of the Chatham-based Pinnacle
Companies, faced a behind-the-scenes religious dilemma on the set of Extreme
Makeover:
Home Edition. The hit ABC reality series rebuilds homes of families who face
hardships.
When his firm was selected to manage the makeover of a home in Bergenfield
for the show, Stolar had to decide what to do when demolition was scheduled
for
Saturday. A founding member of Congregation Etz Chaim in Livingston, Stolar
had never worked on the Sabbath. What's a religious boy to do? He couldn't
negotiate with ABC, so he consulted the rabbis.
"I discussed it with several rabbis," he told NJJN, sitting in a golf cart
on May 10 outside the RV that served as his makeshift office during the
build
in the northern New Jersey suburb. Concluding that all he had to do was be
present and offer what he described as "a pep talk," he decided he could be
on the scene.
"I felt the charity and the kiddush hashem [sanctification of God's name]"
were very important, he said. "There's no income; I'm not earning anything.
We
made sure all of the contractors are not Jewish who worked on that
Saturday.. I davened here that morning. For me it was a very special day."
Participating in the episode of the popular show is a decision he hasn't
regretted. "The whole show is a metaphor very much embedded in the Jewish
philosophy:
'If you can help someone else, give someone a job instead of money..' By
doing this for this family, we are creating a metaphor for everybody to say
I
want to help too.. To be part of that is a tremendous honor."
The episode, which will air as a summer special (the exact date has not been
set), focuses on the Llanes family, immigrants from the Philippines. The
father,
Vicente, is blind due to a hereditary condition. He has two teenage
daughters with the condition who are going blind. His teenage son is deaf
because his
mother, who is now undergoing treatment for cancer, had German measles while
pregnant. A grandmother also lives with the family.
Their 1,000-square-foot house was so small that no one in the family had his
or her own room. It was also noisy due to sounds from the street,
particularly
disturbing to Vicente and his daughters, who have a heightened sensitivity
to noise. And father and son had quite a difficult time communicating.
Stolar was initially reluctant to apply as a builder on the show when a
friend suggested it one year ago. "We're not television actors, and we have
a business
to run," he recalled saying. But when the ABC crew called him cold, he found
he couldn't say no.
"Our goal is to create something that others can get parts and pieces of.
This will change lives," he said. "It will bring a larger public focus on
building
for people with disabilities. People do not know where to start. This will
give people the opportunity to do that."
Stolar managed to infuse the set with his philanthropic approach, from the
VIP passes he offered neighbors inconvenienced by the police presence and
roped-off
local streets, to the Extreme Pinnacle Festival he staged nearby, bringing
in entertainment every evening. Stolar also plans to publish a case study to
share with colleagues in the industry, including the tools and technology
used in the project.
Another Stolar touch was the presence on the set of Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum
of the
Friendship Circle,
the Chabad-Lubavitch organization for children with special needs.
Originally brought in by Stolar to assist the family's teenage daughters,
Grossbaum coordinated
the supply of kosher food for those workers and volunteers who required it.
At ABC's suggestion, the girls, who do not see themselves as disabled, will
instead have the opportunity to volunteer for the Friendship Circle.
In addition, the guest host for the episode is deaf actress Marlee Matlin,
who is Jewish. Matlin made what Stolar called a "special" connection with
the
Friendship Circle, and NJJN has learned there will be a related but
undisclosed "surprise" at next year's local Friendship Circle dinner.
Helping others
The new house is 2,200 square feet, with separate bedrooms for each of the
children and a bedroom suite on the ground floor for their grandmother. It
is
loaded with high-tech equipment, from communication devices that use cameras
and sound to convert sign language to words and back, to the waterfalls in
the walls designed to drown out the street noise and offer a soothing
backdrop.
Twenty different technology companies were brought in to offer their
expertise, as well as the National Federation for the Blind and home
automation experts.
A solar electrical system donated by BP was installed on the roof to offset
the higher day-to-day costs associated with the larger footprint. The home
is highly automated and can be run by a blind or deaf person.
The cost is "incalculable," according to Stolar. While he estimated the
house itself at several hundred thousand dollars and the additional hardware
at
$100,000, the time and labor, including that of teams of experts, could not
be measured, he said.
The pace of building on the set of Extreme Makeover is frenetic, according
to Mary Boorman, senior vice president of marketing and strategic planning
for
Pinnacle. "This has been the weirdest week," she said, and she compared the
contractors to "ants working in their nest."
Participating has had a positive impact not only on Stolar's business but on
that of the 800 to 1,000 contractors he brought in, also on a volunteer
basis.
"The morale boost is absolutely incalculable," said Stolar.
He also believes it will bring a better understanding of the Jewish
community to those who are not part of it. To that end, he has created a
fund for the
Llanes children's education and for the house. His own synagogue has already
raised more than $5,000. He will give the family a list of donors of $5,000
and over and hopes to see the names of a variety of Jewish groups and
organizations on it.
"It's important to show the family and the whole community that Jewish
people and groups are part of society, not separate," he said. "Sometimes
the perception
is that we support our own. This is an excellent, excellent, very public way
of showing that while we are very supportive of our own.we will also help
others in a very big way. It's one of the reasons I'm very proud to be part
of this."
He suggested that synagogues in the community create their own funds and
then combine the results. "Can you imagine, the family gets the list and
sees 10
shuls on it? How wonderful is that?"
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