In a rural California enclave, a tech entrepreneur and architect create an ultramodern smart home inspired by science fiction

By

Candace Taylor

Dec. 6, 2018 10:50 a.m. ET

As college students in the early 1990s, Junaid Qurashi and his friends obsessively watched “Star Trek.”

The sci-fi drama “took us from the real world into this fantasy world,” recalls Mr. Qurashi. The engineering students especially loved the show’s technology, from flip phones to lights that turned on and off automatically. “It touches on this concept of, what is there to come?” he says.

Now a 49-year-old tech entrepreneur, Mr. Qurashi has made futuristic features a reality in his gadget-filled Northern California home, where he can open the shades while lying in bed and set the temperature of the shower before entering the bathroom.