In Park City, top pros conjure a warm and welcoming home rooted to its mountain site and scenery. Images by Laura Bruschke.
Utah’s mountains are just as spectacular in the design they inspire as they are astonishing in their natural beauty. Spending much of their time in Scottsdale, the owners of this Park City residence strongly considered the setting as they pulled together ideas about the look and feel they wanted for their new mountain home located in the tony Glenwild community. Enter JSARC Architects, Beck & Engle Design and J. Ford Construction. This team of pros consulted closely with the couple about their wish list and responded with a client-centric modern home featuring bold architecture, light-filled interior and spaces layered with warm hues and organic elements. “The home naturally imbues dynamic, calm and warm elements, and it feels deeply rooted to its site,” says designer Amanda Engle, principal with Beck & Engle.
Blending seamlessly into the setting’s immediate rolling hills and surrounding mountain views, the house features a unique interplay of volumes, punched openings and roof forms that create a harmonious connection between architecture and nature, explains architect Jeff Schindewolf, principal of JSARC Architects. “The use of materials plays a crucial role in connecting the home to the community and natural surroundings.” Exaggerated smear-jointed grout, integrally colored to complement the locally sourced West Desert stone, and clear-grain cedar siding stained to match the natural color of the surrounding sage bark all help meld the home into its surroundings. Meanwhile, “composite dark bronze metal paneling brings a modern counterpoint to the home’s volumes and color scheme,” Schindewolf adds.
In back, a curved upper-floor deck serves as the main patio roof. The curve of this roof form directs the eye across the Park City Mountain horizon, providing stunning and ever-changing vistas. “Our client is a huge ski enthusiast, so we specifically sited the home to capture the views of the mountain and slopes,” Schindewolf says. Nearby, a 30-foot wide span of motorized glass panels disappears into the walls, opening the great room to a broad patio, seamlessly connecting indoors and out. Above, upper windows lean out over the landscape, “responding to the site’s slope,” the architect explains.
Inside, the same expansive wall of glass panels and tilted windows floods the great room’s open living, dining and kitchen areas with natural light and jaw-dropping views. A monumental fireplace, faced with the same West Desert stone and dark metal panels featured on the exterior, anchors the two-story room. The fireplace’s dark, massive form delivers visual weight to the airy interior and helps foster one’s feeling of being grounded yet simultaneously floating over the scenic setting.
Engle fashioned that dichotomy into an organically inspired, contemporary décor comforted by a decidedly warm palette. “With all of the windows, we needed warm tones to prevent the home from feeling cold,” she explains. The designer teamed rift-cut, white oak floors with soft-white walls to create a canvas upon which she layered a curated mix of stone, woods and metals. “The interior subtly mirrors elements of the architecture, as the two coexist seamlessly,” says Engle, who also used the contrast of light and dark to promote this harmonious relationship.
To that end, dark timber-framed openings link many of the main-level living spaces and pace movement through the house. “They add a sense of rhythm to the floor plan and provide a sense of structure and scale to the interior space,” Engle explains. Their blackish forms contrast with the interior’s light walls, as do the stone-and-metal fireplace, metal range hood, steel staircase and other darkish elements that deliver impact and visual interest to the décor. And because deep-tones recur throughout the home, they promote a sense of continuity that visually ties the spaces together.
A repetition of natural woods, stone and rich textures similarly unifies the interior spaces. Tongue-and-groove vertical grain cedar, for example, flows from exterior overhangs to the ceilings of the great room, entry, upstairs media room and primary suite. “The cedar adds character and a layer of organic warmth,” Engle explains. A gridded headboard wall of dark walnut does the same in the primary bedroom. Stone also makes a big impact there, with Taj Majal quartzite and textured limestone composing the fireplace wall and Calacatta marble cladding the bathroom’s spacious wet room. A free-standing tub is the centerpiece of this area and joins timber-framed openings and a mosaic tile rug to create a striking focal point.
Engle also used lighting to elevate the design and create memorable moments throughout the home. “Lighting can make or break a space,” says Engle, who judiciously mixed statement-making pieces with more restrained fixtures to strike a perfect balance. In the great room, for example, large rings of textured glass resemble soaring, sparkling bracelets hanging high above the living area. Across the room, a simpler, linear fixture floats discreetly above the dining table. “Not everything can be a hero,” says Engle, who introduced a cluster of gem-like pendants to illuminate the stairway, a lighted halo for the primary bedroom and sconces resembling stacked stones for the powder room. “Working with different shapes and not being formulaic in your lighting choices prevents the eye from becoming bored.” There’s little chance of that, given the stylishly calibrated spaces and dynamic architecture that defines this timeless, modern mountain home.
