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Stockton & Shirk is celebrating its 30th birthday this year! It will be offering fun summer sales at its Broadway location.?

In the equation of a Jackson Hole residence, it is best to always multiply by the view. With a site fronted by postcard-worthy vistas of the Cathedral Group, architect Larry Berlin and project manager Gabriel Vazquez of Berlin Architects factored the Tetons into this five-bedroom, five-and- a-half-bath residence from day one. They sought a home design that would interact quietly with its site, highlighting the outdoor drama at every turn, while also retaining an inviting and cozy dynamic.

Warmth comes across in two ways: in the texture of the home’s materials and via its orientation. A long, gallery-style hallway stretches immediately to the left and right as one enters through the residence’s large- scale, reclaimed-oak doors—this forms the home’s axis.

“We wanted to zone the house so that rooms had views but also light. … We made the layout of the house one room wide so that you could get light from at least two different sides—the south and, of course, the views to the north. It’s an organizing element,” Berlin explains.

From this axis point, light and comforts radiate through carefully considered sight lines and well-chosen accents. “You just feel embraced with your surroundings. Everything has a relationship,” says interior designer Brian Goff.

In the great room, a high-vaulted ceiling soars with a mix of heavy timber beams and huge chunks of sandstone moss rock. The reclaimed wood used throughout the building project is striking and of a provenance unique to Jackson Hole homebuilding. After meeting with the design team, CC Builders owner Clint Cook traveled to Canada and the Pacific Northwest to track down variations of reclaimed fir, oak, and other hardwoods. From the great room to the 10-foot doors lining the gallery, the entire home tells a story in wood. Axe strokes remain hewn in the grain while reclaimed oak gives off an approachable amber glow in the kitchen and adjoining “gathering room.”

“We’re trying to bring something unusual to every project,” says Cook of his firm’s approach
to selecting materials. This includes, for example, repurposed timber harvested from Amish barns and huge beams of old-growth Douglas fir salvaged from wharves and abandoned gold mines.

A symphony of reclaimed wood blends together in the kitchen and gathering room. All cabinetry was crafted and installed by Willow Creek Woodworks.?

“You just feel embraced with your surroundings. Everything has a relationship.”
– Brian Goff of Brian Goff Interior Design

The embedded human history imparts a “sense of permanence,” says Vazquez, and this humanness carries through in the craftsmen’s sensitivity to daily life.

One nod to daily use involves the kitchen cabinetry and bar, which were created and installed by Jaxon Ching of Willow Creek Woodworks. Because drawers and cabinets are frequently handled, Ching’s goal was to create a texture that is easy on the hands, yet retains the same patina as the other reclaimed materials present in the home. To achieve this effect, he power-washed and lightly sanded the wood before dry-fitting each piece in his workshop to ensure a perfect fit.

Ching’s expertise went into all the home’s lovingly detailed woodwork, including the passage doors he designed, the stairway posts, and the cabinetry.

“I think it’s good for the clients to actually pick a team that’s been working together for a long time,” he says. “We communicate pretty well—if I were a client, I’d prefer to have a team who work together from the beginning.” From that beginning, each business had a seat at the table.

“It’s a really open environment,” echoes CC Builders project manager Kurt Lund.

Goff focused on creating a “family- gathering home that would be a nice, eclectic mix of textures, materials, and styles, “a nod to the West, but holding on to the cleaner lines of today.” Custom pieces—such as the clean-lined metal chandeliers he designed for the great room—and antiques, like a charming wine-tasting table in one bedroom, reflect that convivial eclecticism. “It’s just a nice mix of older pieces and a newer kind of casual sophistication, if you will,” Goff says.

The master suite, cleverly secluded via double doors at one end of the central passage, creates its own sense of cabin comfort with a sloping roof, more intimate scale, and neutral color palette. An uncut block of sandstone moss rock makes up the mantelpiece, another piece of masonry hand-selected and installed by CC Builders.

“You have a sense of protection because you have the beamwork on the ceilings; you see the structural integrity and visual support of the roof. … It gives you this nice, calm feeling,” Berlin says of the room’s appeal.

Brian Goff selected pale granite tiles for the master bath. The visible beamwork of the master suite’s roof adds to its sense of warmth and intimacy.?

In the master bath, the sinuous curve of the tub and a more contemporary aesthetic set the stage. “As a way to balance all the texture of the reclaimed material, you simplify all cabinetry and textures and tile and secondary spaces,” says Vazquez. This aligned with Goff’s goal to select textiles and finishes with “simplicity of color— letting the antique materials speak for themselves wherever they are.”

From the suite, a set of double-paned glass French doors opens onto a terrace, one of many outdoor spaces on both stories of the home that make the most, once more, of the mountains.

CC Builders advised the homeowners on creating the property’s serene water feature. As its still waters reflect the colors of sunrise and sunset—or freeze to a pristine sheath of ice—the pond they installed contributes to the sense of permanence and protection offered by the home site.

“We suggested adjoining terraces along the entire northwest exterior so every person delights in a view,” Cook says.

A set of mirrored en-suite guest bedrooms and an attached wing complete with game room, kitchenette, and bunk room add to the home’s functionality for the homeowners’ visiting children and friends.
“This project was a great, harmonious collaboration,” says Goff, speaking warmly of the team’s relationship with both the homeowners and each other.

The residence is now a home, richening with the histories of its owners.

If I were a client, I’d prefer to have a team who work together from the beginning.”
– Jaxon Ching of Willow Creek Woodworks

A dynamic hearth with a suspended steel hood is at the heart of this dream home.

The scaffolding in the middle of the great room comes down, revealing a symphony of exquisite textures at play around the hearth, the “pie?ce de re?sistance” of this top-down West Bank remodel. An 18-inch flame, beneath a towering chimney of blackened and waxed steel, lights up the room and softens its muted palette with reflections of seamless cherry wood cabinets and a dynamic glass chandelier. The chandelier, which took more than a year to design, dances with 52 dangling LED, glass-and-bronze pods that hang high above a live-edge dining room table. The original vaulted ceiling is the only part of the 5,000-square-foot, five-bedroom house left untouched by architect Michael Howells of Howells Architecture + Design.

It might be the most technically complex fireplace in the valley.”
– Michael Howells of Howells Architecture + Design

A thick glass enclosure floats above the flame and below the steel hood, allowing the cook to see the subtle textures from one end of the kitchen to the living room. The rocks below were specially made to withstand the heat of the fireplace designed by Howells with Walter Moberg of Moberg Fireplaces.

“It might be the most technically complex fireplace in the valley,” says Howells.

“It’s like a Lamborghini,” says builder Mike Prichard of Dembergh Construction.

“But there’s only one,” adds Howells.

Using car analogies suits the homeowners, a Chicago couple whose love of fast cars, clean lines, refined interiors, and integrated systems led them to remodel this dream house to create an urban aesthetic in the mountains sans the pretensions of the city. They loved the location, and the bones of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out on pine trees to the west and aspens to the east, the only canvases in the great room.

With three bedrooms at one end of the great room and a guest wing that can be closed off at the other end, the redesign makes the space luxurious yet efficient; rustic yet refined. The aggregate in the concrete floors throughout the home’s one story is unstained and polished to a low gloss, but was deliberately sanded to reveal a grainy texture. The cherry wood used to craft all of the custom-made cabinets was selected because it harmonizes with the house’s existing fir trusses, which were stained to match. “I love working with wood, stone, and tile,” Howells says. “In this house, each bath has a variety of stone textures. Accent walls afford a heightened point of interest, almost like giving each bath its own mural or tapestry.”

No corner of the interior was spared, either, including the garage, which has custom cherry doors, shelves, and stairs that lead up to the brain of the house—a control room that looks like the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, humming with color-coded pipes and electronic systems. Even the seats in the guest bathroom showers are heated.

“Everything was carefully considered,” says Prichard, adding that in most projects there is an element of give and take when gutting a house, which leads to compromises on details like interior finishes or state-of-the-art sound systems that control everything from large-screen

TVs to the cigar humidifier. “The homeowners saw the value in devoting resources to the infrastructure of the house. The systems you can’t see are what make this project so distinctive. Lighting, AV, shades, and HVAC are all controlled from iPads and touchscreens.”

Prichard and Howells describe the owners as rare clients who appreciate architect-driven design and uncompromised craftsmanship. More than 40 craftsmen worked on the fireplace alone.

“We prefer a masculine and simple look, but being in the mountains we wanted it to be cozy,” says the homeowner, who went shopping with interior designer Kate Binger for hand-woven rugs, furniture, and sculptures that melded the textures of the wood, steel, and stone finishes. “The rugs and the fabrics had to balance each other, along with all of the hard finishes,” Binger says. “If you don’t have the right texture to balance the clean lines it just becomes stark.”

Trips to Chicago, New York, and even Portland, Oregon, led them to uncover the look and feel they sought. The oatmeal-and-gray furniture highlights the organic textures in the bones of the house without taking away from the elements of its design.

Custom cherry woodwork is featured throughout the home. Chandeliers by contemporary lighting company Ochre hang in the powder room and above the dining room table, both custom designed as well.

Binger, who owns Designed Interiors and the showroom Dwelling on the Town Square, brought a more feminine touch to the powder room off the kitchen with grasscloth wallpaper, a waved tile, and an understated version of the chandelier that hangs above the dining room table. Both chandeliers were custom made by Ochre, an exclusive contemporary lighting company recommended by Howells.

Sophisticated inset steel nightstands and headboards play against the neutral palette of the bedroom’s textiles.

The inset steel nightstands and headboard of the master bedroom— and cherry vanities throughout
the home—required the architect, builder, and interior designer to work closely with Willow Creek Woodworks of Idaho Falls. So as to leave no room for error, Willow Creek assembled and sanded the kitchen on-site.

“The architect did not want to see a joint on the finished ends,” says Willow Creek’s owner, Jaxon Ching. “He was very particular about that. First I was a little skeptical. But after a while, I just realized it would take more time. As a cabinetmaker I can see what he was looking at. The overall project looks really nice.”

His favorite part was stitching together leather embossed to resemble stingrays on a floating bronze cabinet in the great room.

Binger sourced as much locally as possible, including a metal base for the coffee table and the dark walnut dining table, which, without stools at the kitchen counter, is used on a daily basis even though it seats up to 14. At a recent dinner party, the homeowners even set a table alongside the fireplace and used the ledge as a bench.

“Given the generous dining table, we skipped the customary redundant bar seating at the kitchen island,” Howells says. “Without stools they can store their china in glass cabinets under the counter. It makes it easy to create a joyous table. It’s where they live their lives.”