Surrey
Cheval Estate
Estate-wide AV, IT, BMS and lighting control renewal
- Private estate · Concept Bespoke
- Seventeen buildings under an annual maintenance agreement
- Phase 3 lighting commissioned June 2026
Summary
Cheval Estate is a private country estate in Surrey with seventeen buildings, from the Manor and Bishopsheath House to the lodge, gardens, pavilion and grounds hubs. Working for Concept Bespoke, OKTO has renewed the estate's technology in stages since 2024: AV and IT across every building, a new BMS for the Annexe, and in 2026 the replacement of obsolete iLight lighting controls with Lutron and Crestron across the estate, all while the family remained in residence.
At a glance
- 01Client contractor Concept Bespoke, working with the estate's own management and engineering team; OKTO first worked on the estate in 2018
- 022024: Annexe AV, BMS and lighting control; estate-wide AV and IT renewal delivered from strip-out to client demonstration in three weeks
- 032026: Phase 3 lighting: twelve Lutron HomeWorks QSX processors, 81 dimming modules in seventeen panels, 327 circuits, 48 Crestron Horizon keypads with bespoke onyx faceplates, 52 Lutron Pico keypads
- 04Aruba WiFi 6 network and Fortinet firewalls across the estate on the existing cabling, two grounds hubs and fibre between buildings
- 05Annual maintenance agreement across seventeen buildings with remote monitoring; Pavilion lighting and window control; supply of further access points
- 06September 2026: asked to price taking over the estate's Genetec security system
The case study
The project
Its seventeen buildings include the Manor with its basement pool and rotunda, Bishopsheath House and its gatehouse, the lodge, cottage, gardens, pavilion, stables and estate office, a tree house, and the plant rooms and hubs that keep the grounds running. OKTO first worked here in 2018, on the heating controls for Cheval Gardens. Since 2023 the estate's fit-out contractor, Concept Bespoke, has brought OKTO back for a rolling programme of renewal.
The brief
The estate's technology had been installed piecemeal over two decades. The lighting controls were iLight and Mode, no longer manufactured and with spares increasingly hard to find, which left the estate one failed panel away from a building without lights. Heating and cooling were controlled by a mix of Heatmiser and Daikin units cluttering the walls, and the network could not carry modern WiFi. The family wanted it all brought up to date, with keypads and finishes to match the interiors, and without moving out.
What we delivered
The work has come in stages. In spring 2024 OKTO fitted out the Annexe with new AV, a Schneider BMS, Lutron lighting and Crestron keypads. That summer we renewed the AV and IT across the whole estate in three weeks: Crestron processors upgraded to the current generation, the client's own interface carried over to Crestron iPads for continuity with their other homes, HPE Aruba switches and WiFi 6 access points on the existing cabling, Fortinet firewalls, and new televisions and sources in every building. In 2025 we added lighting and window treatment control to the Pavilion and supplied further outdoor access points.
What we delivered
Phase 3, in the first half of 2026, replaced the lighting control across the Manor, Bishopsheath, the lodge, the gardens and the external areas: twelve Lutron HomeWorks QSX processors, 81 dimming modules in seventeen panels serving 327 circuits, 48 Crestron Horizon keypads with faceplates cut from onyx, 52 Lutron Pico keypads, and an astronomical clock for the grounds. A remote monitoring appliance watches every device.
The challenges
The family was in residence throughout. The keypad cabling was legacy solid-core Cat5e, which breaks when it is disturbed, and a full re-cable was too disruptive to contemplate. Every solid-core cable was terminated into a fixed coupler in the back box and converted to stranded cable to the keypad, with every connection photographed for the estate team. The Manor was fitted with wireless Pico keypads as a temporary measure so that the panels could be changed while the family was at home. Panels were built and tested in Lisburn and installed building by building.
How we did it
The result
Phase 3 was commissioned between 15 and 17 June 2026 with every zone passing: 63 in the Manor, 48 at Bishopsheath, 30 in the lodge, sixteen in the pool lounge. The estate is covered by an annual maintenance agreement across all seventeen buildings. In August 2026 the client asked OKTO to price taking over the estate's Genetec security system as well.
Client view
“In all honesty OKTO are the best in the business and make contracting that little bit easier.”
Start conversation
Tell us what has to work, and the person accountable for the right discipline will respond.