Approaching its 10-year milestone, Farmer Payne Architects is growing its reach and earning national recognition for excellence in the architectural space.
In designing LRN, an award-winning Sun Valley home that’s close to town yet feels a world away, Farmer Payne maximized the property’s expansive mountain vistas.
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Helen Olsson
Architecture
Farmer Payne Architects
farmerpaynearchitects.com
LRN’s flat-roof design melds the structure seamlessly into the surrounding landscape, while sophisticated interiors transform the home into a true oasis.
This year, Farmer moved his team to a new office space in midtown Jackson, while Payne led the design of the company’s own office building in Ketchum, Idaho. Called First Chair, the project required designing a contemporary building in Ketchum’s historic downtown core. Mixing big moments in glass with an exterior material palette that repurposed century-old, locally made reclaimed bricks, First Chair received a prestigious American Institute of Architects-Idaho Honor Award. “As a firm, we enjoyed the challenge of bringing Ketchum’s architectural history into a modern building. Receiving recognition for this vision was very meaningful to us,” Payne says.
Set on a East Texas cattle ranch, this lodge-inspired home features local limestone, reclaimed wood, and heritage timber beams.
Moving offices, in Ketchum and Jackson, represents a defining chapter in the firm’s evolution. “It’s given us a moment of pause to reflect on our accomplishments and how far we’ve come,” says Meredith Leonard, director of operations and interiors. “One of the biggest challenges of a growing company is staying true to your core mission. For us, that’s the quality of the product—and the process.”
Architect Jamie Farmer partnered with an all-star cast of designers, engineers, and builders to realize the cutting-edge Snow King Observatory and Planetarium, on the summit of Snow King Mountain and overlooking the town of Jackson.
Farmer Payne also won an AIA-Idaho Award of Citation for Pioneer Ranch, a contemporary home in Hailey featuring hand-hewn heavy timbers and stone, and an AIA-Idaho Honor Award for LRN, a contemporary energy-efficient residence in Sun Valley that captures stunning 360-degree views while quietly integrating the home into the landscape with an unobtrusive flat-roof design.
The firm chose contemporary forms that nestle naturally into the hillside to create Grand Terre, a legacy property in Wilson, Wyoming, that frames the Grand Teton, and draws curious local wildlife.
Farmer Payne Architects, alongside GALCZYNSKI, designed Snow King Observatory, the pioneering astronomy center perched atop Jackson’s local ski resort, earning global recognition, including an Award of Honor from the AIA College of Fellows Western Mountain Region. “That one was especially meaningful because the award spans projects across eight Western states,” Farmer says. Keeping the local ecosystem in mind, he designed the observatory—which houses a massive Plane Wave telescope and 24-foot dome—with a deliberately small footprint and low profile. The firm also landed on Forbes’s Best-in-State Residential Architects 2025 list and its Top 200 Residential Architects in America list. But they’re keeping the accolades in perspective. “Honestly, we’re just trying to make beautiful buildings,” Payne says. “The awards are simply a byproduct of being really passionate and working really hard.”
Farmer Payne says its success is in part built on a deeply collaborative approach with clients. “When we interface with and get to know the client, we’re able to design what they truly want,” Farmer says. “At the end of a project, the clients are our friends.”
