MICK!

Wouldn't that be cool?! Actually, I'm hoping our studio is graced by Joe Perry of Aerosmith some time soon! My engineer buddy is working as his guitar tech right now! In fact, what a dream come true if they ALL decided to stop in?!
> Any other buildings on the property?
No, sir. There are surrounding lots around the same size, each has a house on it - this is a wooded neighborhood. I'm actually getting away with this by building a "House" with a "private studio" built into it. So I must admit now, it's not ALL studio. We're going to be living there. But my wife is a musician and she's the studio manager. We won't be advertising as in the last studio, which should cut down the traffic. This spot is at the end of a 4 mile dead end road, 8 miles from town. Perfect, really.
The entire building encloses about 4000 sq ft + 3-1/2 car garage. 2430 sq ft of the upstairs is living space. The remaining 370 sq ft - of the upstairs (octagon) - is the control room, which will actually double as an acoustic tracking room - I'll be keeping the piano in there, as well as track strings, acoustic guitar, etc.
The trend in a lot of areas seems to be going toward a multiple purpose control room, as long as you can make it a quiet room. This is because the room should be a decently sized, which works well for tracking, as well. Furthermore, I don't practice a lot of what Nashville does... I use studio musicians whenever I can- they save me time, and the clients money. However, some of the bands insist on playing the songs themselves, whether I re-arrange the music or not. I allow for this, as long as they understand the possible consequences (more time, more expense). Therefore, I set up the "band leaders" in the control room during tracking - their guitars somewhere else - so they can hear how the music is tracking. In other words, I allow them to have a hand in producing their own work. I really don't like taking the music away from the artists strictly for the sake of "commercial compatibility".
So the downstairs is for the louder instruments and is sealed from the control room by 25 inches of hardwood, concrete, styrafoam, fiberbard, cellulose insulation, and 2 layers of drywall. Instead of big windows for communication, we'll be using large, flat screen monitoring, split between musicians in their perspective rooms. This also doubles as a good security system.
This also gives me the nice option of mixing the projects in the upstairs living space when the band and office workers are long gone, enjoying the deck and wilderness, without having to leave my living space: The control room comes right off the living room / dining / kitchen, which is one large area.... By the way, with the possibility of tracking orchestral music, this "big room" with a 20 ft tall (vaulted ceiling) rock wall is right outside my control room door. Although it functions primarily as our living area, I call the the "Hall". More pictures will reveal what I'm talking about....