hen Giovanni Vitale awakes each morning, he can step onto his deck and gaze at the pink sunrise lighting up the eastern sky over Lake St. Clair. But when he's in a hurry, he skips the view and barks a command into his bedside phone; the shower turns on, the garage heats up and his car starts. His home's unusual touches, including a three-story glass spire and neon-lighted marble headboard in the master bedroom, make the lakeside prope rty outside Detroit at once dazzling and baffling.

Vitale's appetite for new technology is as unbridled as his taste in design. "Every device that has power is automated," says Steve Reno of Ferndale, Mich., who installed a Stargate home automation system for the Italian-born owner of a building-materials firm. When Vitale, 52, walks into a room, motion activators turn on the lights. When he's entertaining, guests can watch movies on the home theater, listen to house-wide audio or step onto the dance floor for some karaoke, while a wall-mounted camera vid eotapes the performance for instant playback after each song.

For water fun, Vitale hops into his 40-ft. Fountain speed boat (docked next to the house), comforted by the knowledge that a simple call on his cell phone will illuminate a spotlight atop his house's glass spire to help him navigate through the mist after dark. When he wants to stay indoors, a 20-ft. lap pool and spa are great for rainy days. Touch screens give him instant control of light, heat, sound, power blinds and gas fireplaces, while the heat-mirror glass facing the lake keeps out extreme heat or cold.

"I just love my house," says Vitale, who had architect Vince Cataldo of Infuz Ltd. design and build his home. "It's not what I wanted--it's better than I wanted." At last, 30 years after leaving Palermo, Vitale has a new home.

--With reporting by Michael McBride/Detroit