Nanaimo is where Wenner started — the original electrical contracting business, founded in 1945. The Boxwood Road Experience Centre is still where the design and integration team rolls out from for projects across the Mid-Island. Nanaimo’s residential mix has shifted meaningfully over the last decade: oceanfront new builds along the North End, serious renovations in the older waterfront streets, and a growing layer of architecturally considered custom homes in Lantzville and Nanoose Bay.
Greater Nanaimo: where most projects fall
Wenner runs Nanaimo projects out of the Boxwood Road Experience Centre. The catchment we work in continuously:
- North Nanaimo — North End, Stephenson Point, Hammond Bay, Departure Bay. Substantial waterfront lots with serious modern custom builds. The bulk of our Nanaimo volume. Reference projects include Sandstone at Stephenson Point and Seaside on Polaris Drive in the Hammond Bay area.
- Departure Bay & Brechin Hill — closer-in waterfront, often older homes getting full-renovation integration scopes.
- Lantzville — small community immediately north of Nanaimo with a growing custom-build cluster. Architecturally considered, often acreage.
- Nanoose Bay — the transition zone between Nanaimo and Parksville. Significant oceanfront and forested-acreage builds. Reference: Qualia — CEDIA Best Ultra-Luxury Home, Americas — was built in Nanoose Bay.
- South Nanaimo — typically smaller residential, less integration-intensive than the North End.
The Boxwood Road centre also serves Parksville, Qualicum Beach, the Comox Valley, Tofino, Ucluelet, and Gabriola Island.
What to specify in a Nanaimo home
The disciplines that benefit most from being designed in early — at schematic, alongside the architect and interior designer:
- Architectural lighting — layered ambient/task/accent/decorative, on a Lutron HomeWorks or Crestron platform. Keypads engraved to match the metal palette. Scene programming so the homeowner has one button for “Dinner” instead of fifteen dimmers.
- Motorised shading and drapery — Lutron Palladiom hardware, fabric coordinated with the interior designer. Hammond Bay and North End waterfront orientation makes solar control non-negotiable through much of the year.
- Audio and video integration — distributed audio across the home, dedicated theatres, listening rooms. Speakers behind plaster. The room’s silhouette stays uninterrupted.
- Climate integration — your mechanical contractor’s HVAC, brought into the Crestron or Lutron platform with smart zoning and scene-driven setpoints. Worth coordinating early on multi-zone builds.
- Security, surveillance and access — integrated into the same platform alongside lighting, AV and climate. Monitoring is dispatched by a local Canadian ULC-listed station.
Standby power — essentially standard on Nanaimo waterfront
Nanaimo winter storm season is a known hazard for the BC Hydro grid — the Mid-Island corridor loses power multiple times most winters, sometimes for extended periods. On new custom builds along the North End waterfront, a Kohler standby generator with automatic transfer switch is essentially standard scope:
- Sized to whole-home or critical-load depending on the property. Whole-home is the cleaner solution on luxury builds but requires careful coordination with the fuel routing.
- Automatic transfer switch brought into the Crestron platform so the homeowner sees runtime, fuel level, exercise schedule on the same interface as lighting and security.
- Propane vs natural gas — coordination with the mechanical trade at design development. Propane buys autonomy; natural gas removes the tank.
Coordinating the generator at schematic means the enclosure, fuel routing, transfer switch, and electrical service all land where they’re supposed to without compromising the architecture.
When to bring an integrator in
As early as possible — ideally at schematic design. The drawings need to reflect the technology before framing begins. Joining the project at design development still works. Joining at framing or rough-in is workable but compromises the elegance of how the technology disappears into the architecture.
For Nanaimo projects we recommend a one-hour visit to the Boxwood Road Experience Centre with the architect, the interior designer, the builder, and the homeowner. Open Tuesday through Friday by appointment. It’s the fastest way to align the team on what the technology scope can be.
What it costs
A whole-home Crestron or Lutron HomeWorks system in a luxury Nanaimo custom build typically lands between $80,000 and $400,000+ for the technology scope, depending on home size, system depth, and how much of the lighting, audio-video, shading, climate and security scope sits on the platform. The technology budget is usually 4–8% of the home’s overall construction cost.
Wenner produces three Design Packages — Foundation, Premier, and Estate — sized to project complexity. The package drives the budget conversation rather than a parts list.
Next step
Book a Centre Visit at the Boxwood Road Experience Centre. We’ll set aside an hour, dim the room, and walk through what’s possible — with no obligation to do anything next.