ARCHITECTURE
THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE The roofline defines a new house on May Park.
By Elizabeth Clair Flood FROM THE START, the location of the Riddells’ new home—adjacent to May Park in East Jackson, and with nearly 360-degree views that include the Tetons, Cache Creek, and Snow King—informed its design. As did the Riddells’ Houzz account. (Houzz is an online resource of home design photos.) Travis (a pediatrician at St. John’s Medical Center) and Annie’s (a nonprofit consultant) Houzz pages included mostly contemporary images. These images with the potential views started the design conversation. After interviewing several local architects, the couple chose Brad Hoyt and Adam Janak of CTA Architects Engineers’ Jackson office (the firm’s main offices are in Billings, Montana). CTA’s aesthetic, a blend of
contemporary and traditional, appealed to the Riddells. “Right away we all seemed to see eye to eye,” Travis says. “The Riddells wanted a pretty contemporary house,” Hoyt says. “Not a cold office-like building, but one that was warm with contemporary forms and natural materials.” Its most distinctive feature—a butterfly roof—didn’t come until the end of the design process. “We realized the design allowed for a higher ceiling in the master bedroom, and this seemed to balance the project,” Hoyt says. Years ago a shape like this might have been considered impractical in the Rocky Mountains, but today’s technology and engineering allow the roof to hold snow well and also to easily drain.
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