Coastal Source may be an unfamiliar brand to many people in the general lighting industry. LightNOW is pleased to be among the first lighting publications to get an inside look at their new products and to share the company’s story with our readers. Coastal Source is a unique outdoor lighting & audio speaker system manufacturer with an unusual business model poised to assist landscape architects and other specifiers meet the demands and expectations of discerning residential and commercial customers.
The Event
This past weekend, on February 24th, Suelynn Shiller and I attended a Coastal Source partner event at Kennedy Space Center outside Orlando, FL. It was an impressive event with roughly 300 partners, including dealers, integrators, custom design-builders, reps, retailers, staff, suppliers, and trade press, in attendance.
The event launched Coastal Source’s new modular landscape lighting family, the EVO Lighting Series. See the the 
image here and below. More about the new EVO Lighting Series is in The Products section below.
The company also launched a new modular line of outdoor audio speakers called the Bollard 1000 Speaker Series. See the last photo below.
In addition to these product launches, the event marked the company’s 15th Anniversary of its founding. Attendees received a memorable tour of the Apollo 8 / Saturn V Center, with its Firing Room (Mission Control Room) and a dinner underneath an actual Saturn V rocket (mounted horizontally), that would stand 36 stories high, 60 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
The Products
The new EVO Lighting Series is a modular landscape lighting line built around three LED light engine choices: STANDARD power, HIGH power, and TUNABLE (tunable white). Like all Coastal Source products, the new EVO Lighting Series is a high-end outdoor lighting system designed, above all else, to survive the harshest elements, including salt water, salt spray, fertilizers, impacts, hurricanes, and more.
The key to the durability and corrosion resistance are 1. an IP68-rated sealed light engine that is solid brass in construction, 2. Solid brass luminaire housings, and 3. IP68-rated and sealed cable connectors. The solid brass IP68 light engine is something that I’ve never seen before in my 20+ years in the lighting industry.
The tunable white luminaire is a UL-approved, 120VAC Ketra Ready fixture developed in collaboration with Lutron, the maker of Ketra lamps. The commercial-grade solid brass fixture is specifically designed to use the Ketra full-spectrum E26 or E25 S30 LED lamp to bring high-quality, tunable light to any outdoor space. Convenient app-based control of each lamp’s color temperature from 1,400K to 10,000K and brightness up to 1050 lumens allow lighting designers to provide clients with customizable and controllable outdoor experiences. This Ketra-compatible product is now being shown with the rest of its outdoor speakers and lighting systems at Lightapalooza 2024, in Booth #604, at the Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel & Spa, from Feb. 26-29, 2024.
The Company
Coastal Source outdoor lighting and speaker systems are high-end products, typically installed at multi-million dollar homes and commercial resorts. The Co-Founder & CEO, Franco D’Ascanio, is a custom home builder. He repeatedly had bad experiences with conventional outdoor lighting and audio equipment that didn’t survive the Florida Keys and other harsh coastal environments. So, he designed his own products, from the ground up (pun intended) to “Defy the Elements” (the company’s tag line).
Coastal Source goes to market differently from most lighting companies, landscape or otherwise. They do NOT sell through electrical or lighting distributors. They’ve built up a national network of hundreds of “dealerships.” These are typically smart home integrators and custom design-builders. These dealers not only supply the product, they are also certified installers of the products, both the outdoor audio and lighting systems.
The company is currently focusing on expanding its partnerships with specifiers, including landscape architects, architects, and lighting designers. More information on Coastal Source can be found here.
All images: Suelynn Shiller
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