The New West
A Sun Valley Home reinterprets Western style for a modern-minded family.
ARCHITECTURE by Michael Blash & Associates
INTERIOR DESIGN by jamesthomas
The owners of this mountain home in Sun Valley, Idaho, had a clear directive for their design team: “No antler chandeliers, no Navajo rugs, nothing really rustic,” says interior designer Thomas Riker. Instead, they wanted a comfortable, family-friendly home appropriate for their three young children—but with a modern edge.
While Chicago-based Riker and James Dolenc, partners at interior design firm jamesthomas, certainly could appreciate the owners’ aesthetic, they wanted to ground the home in its rugged surroundings. “We didn’t want it to look harshly modern, or like it could have been anywhere. We wanted this home to feel right for its setting,” Riker says. “That really forced us to think about the Western idea in a very different way.”
Riker and Dolenc took cues from architect Michael Blash’s contemporary take on Craftsman style, which melds pitched rooflines and thick rafters with patinated steel and floor-to-ceiling windows. Rather than drawing up one cavernous structure, the architect—based in Ketchum, Idaho—designed a cluster of five separate forms connected by glass-walled transitional spaces. “Our original concept for the structure was to create a village feel—a few buildings nestled against the hillside, which keeps it from feeling so huge and imposing,” Blash says.
The interiors, too, are more intimate than the home’s significant square footage would suggest. “It doesn’t feel like a massive house,” Riker says. “The family room is actually quite a cozy space. Nothing is out of scale or unnecessarily large.”
To add warmth throughout the home, the design team employed wood and stone not only as furniture and flooring material, but also as wall and ceiling treatments. But there are no distressed ceiling beams or salvaged barn wood to be found here. The natural materials are refined rather than rugged. Custom-made cabinets and paneling feature mahogany and walnut, and modern latticework on the ceiling in the entry and master bath recall the industrial underside of a drawbridge.
Riker and Dolenc balanced the polished finishes with warmly upholstered furnishings, along with a few eclectic combinations to bring the interiors to life. In the living room, the designers paired onyx-topped coffee tables with African cup stools. In the family room, a futuristic Ellipse chair by Modernica is upholstered in an unexpected tweedy wool, and a clean-lined, custom-designed couch is wrapped in wide-wale corduroy for a “twist on rustic mountain style,” Riker says.
In the entry, the designers pushed the homeowners’ limits on Western design by encouraging them to buy a large-scale equestrian painting by California-based artist Ashley Collins. “They were like, ‘It’s a horse.’ But we said, ‘It’s a modern horse,’” Riker explains. “It’s this cool, contemporary piece of artwork, but it speaks to where you are.”
They also put a modern spin on bringing the outdoors in, adding a trough of river rock under the sink in the master bath, placing a live-edge console table carved from a big chunk of tree in the entry, and filling an empty corner near a stairway with a sculptural bronze chair by Baal Creations that “looks like a dug-up boulder,” Riker says.
“The home is this super-cool combination of modern and the mountains. It’s so unexpected and organic,” Riker says. It has all of the customary materials—stone, cedar, weathered metal—but none of the traditional trappings of Old West style. Consider this Western design for the next generation.
Article originally published here.
ARCHITECTURE by Michael Blash & Associates
INTERIOR DESIGN by jamesthomas
The owners of this mountain home in Sun Valley, Idaho, had a clear directive for their design team: “No antler chandeliers, no Navajo rugs, nothing really rustic,” says interior designer Thomas Riker. Instead, they wanted a comfortable, family-friendly home appropriate for their three young children—but with a modern edge.
While Chicago-based Riker and James Dolenc, partners at interior design firm jamesthomas, certainly could appreciate the owners’ aesthetic, they wanted to ground the home in its rugged surroundings. “We didn’t want it to look harshly modern, or like it could have been anywhere. We wanted this home to feel right for its setting,” Riker says. “That really forced us to think about the Western idea in a very different way.”
Riker and Dolenc took cues from architect Michael Blash’s contemporary take on Craftsman style, which melds pitched rooflines and thick rafters with patinated steel and floor-to-ceiling windows. Rather than drawing up one cavernous structure, the architect—based in Ketchum, Idaho—designed a cluster of five separate forms connected by glass-walled transitional spaces. “Our original concept for the structure was to create a village feel—a few buildings nestled against the hillside, which keeps it from feeling so huge and imposing,” Blash says.
The interiors, too, are more intimate than the home’s significant square footage would suggest. “It doesn’t feel like a massive house,” Riker says. “The family room is actually quite a cozy space. Nothing is out of scale or unnecessarily large.”
To add warmth throughout the home, the design team employed wood and stone not only as furniture and flooring material, but also as wall and ceiling treatments. But there are no distressed ceiling beams or salvaged barn wood to be found here. The natural materials are refined rather than rugged. Custom-made cabinets and paneling feature mahogany and walnut, and modern latticework on the ceiling in the entry and master bath recall the industrial underside of a drawbridge.
Riker and Dolenc balanced the polished finishes with warmly upholstered furnishings, along with a few eclectic combinations to bring the interiors to life. In the living room, the designers paired onyx-topped coffee tables with African cup stools. In the family room, a futuristic Ellipse chair by Modernica is upholstered in an unexpected tweedy wool, and a clean-lined, custom-designed couch is wrapped in wide-wale corduroy for a “twist on rustic mountain style,” Riker says.
In the entry, the designers pushed the homeowners’ limits on Western design by encouraging them to buy a large-scale equestrian painting by California-based artist Ashley Collins. “They were like, ‘It’s a horse.’ But we said, ‘It’s a modern horse,’” Riker explains. “It’s this cool, contemporary piece of artwork, but it speaks to where you are.”
They also put a modern spin on bringing the outdoors in, adding a trough of river rock under the sink in the master bath, placing a live-edge console table carved from a big chunk of tree in the entry, and filling an empty corner near a stairway with a sculptural bronze chair by Baal Creations that “looks like a dug-up boulder,” Riker says.
“The home is this super-cool combination of modern and the mountains. It’s so unexpected and organic,” Riker says. It has all of the customary materials—stone, cedar, weathered metal—but none of the traditional trappings of Old West style. Consider this Western design for the next generation.
Article originally published here.
