Wayne Thom
The home accommodates just the owners or their entire family equ…
The owners of this second home in Snowmass, Colo., followed a pattern that’s becoming more and more common among empty nesters. They sold their primary residence in suburban Chicago and moved to an apartment downtown. Then they built their Colorado home in the Roaring Fork Valley near Aspen as a country retreat.
The clients picked their site for its 360-degree views of the surrounding meadow and mountains. But architect David Warner had to be very careful about the extent to which the home took in those views. Because the sun is so strong at this 7,800-foot elevation, too much glass would turn the house into a pressure cooker. He, design partner Mark Lipkin, and project manager Aaron Hoffmans finessed the situation with judiciously placed windows. “We tried to bring in light from two sides in every room,” he says. “Otherwise one side gets too glarey.” Instead of overloading the south and west façades with glass, they wrapped porches around those sides, enabling the owners to enjoy their beautiful setting in the outdoors.
Having built custom residences in this ski-happy area for more than 20 years, contractor Shane Evans knows a thing or two about vacation homes. In many of his projects with radiant-heat floors, including this one, he has used a structural, plywood-and-aluminum subfloor called Warmboard. “It comes up to temperature more quickly than if they had a concrete subfloor,” he says.The prompt response especially helps out-of-town owners, who don’t want to wait hours for their home to heat up after they’ve been away.
Material selections throughout the house leaned toward the natural and the elemental. “To me a vacation home is a place where you leave formality behind and get close to the materials,” says Warner. He and the clients picked out “standing dead” columns for the living room—logs that were cut down after they’d already died and weathered. Other woods used inside include vertical grain fir and reclaimed heart pine, and the roof is clad in cedar shingles and corrugated rusting metal. “These materials have proven themselves over 100 years,” he says. “They fit into the whole idea of having the house seem appropriate for the site and region.”
Project Credits
Builder: Structural Associates, Glenwood Springs, Colo.
Architect: Lipkin Warner Design & Planning, Basalt, Colo.
Landscape architect: Mt. Daly Enterprises, Basalt
Interior designer: Design Source, Chicago
Living space: 6,785 square feet
Site size: 31.5 acres
Construction cost: Withheld
Photographer: Wayne Thom
Resources: Audio/video system: Artistic Sound; Bathroom plumbing fittings/fixtures: American China, Just, and Kohler; Dishwashers: Bosch and Fisher & Paykel; Fireplace: Heat-N-Glo; Garage doors: Overhead Garage Door; HVAC equipment: Weil-McLain; Patio doors/windows: Lowen; Range: Viking; Refrigerator: Sub-Zero; Warming drawer: Viking.
