Range JH: Issue 9

ISSUE 9 / 2019

TEN TIPS

Set a beautiful table

ARTISAN

DESIGN

MUST HAVE

Stonemason

Smart Homes

Bar Carts

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RangeJH.com

COMPLIMENTARY

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Kr a f y P h o t o s

headwalljh.com | 307.413.7754

TABLE OF CONTENTS features

46 —

MORE THAN A FEELING

When remodeling their house, the Rippses were guided by how they wanted their home to feel rather than look.

By Maggie Theodora

50 —

THE MATURING OF METRO PLATEAU

Ten years after the first residents moved in, we check in with the valley’s first live-work community.

By Lila Edythe

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THE HEALTHY HOUSE

Biophilic design, which incorporates the natural world into spaces, might make you healthier.

page 46

By Geraldine Stal

Photograph by Tuck Fauntleroy

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ARCHITECTS | ENGINEERS 1 1 1 0 M A P L E W AY J A C K S O N , W Y | 3 0 7 . 7 3 3 . 9 9 5 5 | H O Y T C TA . H O U Z Z . C O M

TABLE OF CONTENTS departments

— 16

— 22

— 36

10 / WHAT INSPIRES ME

Bonny and Mark Hershberger

28 / ARTISAN: MASON NICK TONKS

Stonemasonry is one of the oldest trades in the world.

12 / FAVORITES

What we love right now

32 / ARCHITECTURE: PRIVACY WITH VIEWS

The challenge of this Shooting Star home was making

the most of views without sacrificing privacy.

16 / MUST HAVE: BAR CARTS

The best carts for your home bar and

the accessories to place on them

36 / TRAVEL: SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

Art, architecture, and design unstuff-ify this town.

20 / NEIGHBORHOOD: INDIAN PAINTBRUSH

This subdivision tucked into a hillside is hidden and, because

of smart planning, neighbors often can’t see each other.

42 / DESIGN: SMARTY HOMES

Home tech, from smart doorbells to voice-activated

thermometers, looks good and makes life easier.

22 / TEN TIPS: SETTING THE TABLE Take your next dinner party up a notch with a well-dressed table.

64 / HOME SWEET HOME

Maggie and Les Gibson

ON THE COVER Photograph by Cole Buckhart “There was a lot more bacon on the table before the photographer came,” says Lindsey Johnson, an interior designer and founder of the boutique bakery Lady in the Wild West. “It was hard to have all this food on the table and tell the boys they couldn’t eat it yet.” Johnson, who with husband Jeremiah is mom to Killian and Soren (pictured) and also Hatton, shares tips for setting a stylish table in this issue’s Ten Tips department (pg. 22). Here she mixed the family’s colorful regular plates with pieces passed down from her grandmother and found pieces. “Everything is eclectic and colorful and fun,” she says. Johnson often includes unexpected elements when setting a table: “Here I used a cake stand for the waffles,” she says. Instead of a tablecloth or runner, she placed a slab of Carrera marble in the center. “There are so many things you can do with marble slabs, from using them on the table to rolling out sugar cookies or doing chocolate work on them,” she says.

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Trailblazing Modern Architecture in the West for over 20 Years.

dynia.com Jackson, Wyoming 307.733.3766 Denver, Colorado 303.339.9910

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR I HAD TO LEAVE MY house to write this letter. Sitting on one of the leather stools at the front bar at Picnic looking at traffic driving past on Maple Way, I can collect my thoughts. Sitting in a chair in my East Jackson home office looking out at crabapple trees denuded of their fruit by some of the valley’s urban moose, I can’t focus because my thoughts turn to home projects my boyfriend and I want to do. In the office alone, there are bookshelves and a closet to organize, a side table to find to go with our new sleeper sofa, and chipped wall paint to touch up. (OK, it’s mostly me who wants to do these projects; I don’t know that my boyfriend has noticed that our walls even have chipped paint.) I could do any one of these things in about the same amount of time it will take me to write this letter—a thought that makes it difficult to sit at my desk and concentrate. To ensure that I write rather than home improve, I went to Picnic.

I like to think I’m good at managing my time as a writer and editor, but Range does test me. How can I not be continually inspired to make my own home more fun, cozy, or clean when this job entails finding and writing about interesting, beautiful, and unique homes, and also requires that I study interior design trends and products?

For instance: It wasn’t until this issue of Range that I registered a bar cart as an essential piece of furniture. But then the “Must Have” department (p. 16) came in and, while reading the thoughts of local designers, stylesetters, and cocktail connoisseurs about bar carts and essential bar cart supplies, I came to the conclusion a bar cart was indeed a “must have.”

(Although I have yet to find one I love for my house; this is now a to-do on my list of home projects.)

Reading about biophilic design (“The Healthy House,” p. 58) has me thinking about turning a portion of one of our decks into a green roof— planting it with native grasses that, when we leave the sliding door open in the summer, will soothe and de-stress us as they gently rustle in the breeze. Or, since that’s likely not in the budget, at least having more planters stuffed with gorgeous flowers on the deck this summer.

And then there’s Carolyn and Andy Ripps’ house remodel (“More Than A Feeling,” p. 46). I’ll just admit that I love everything about their home— from little things like the cane-back settee Carolyn found at Eclectic Consignment and spray painted black, to bigger issues like how the couple approached the remodel. (FYI, their approach was that they thought about how they wanted their home to feel rather than going for a specific look.)

As usual, we also rounded up designers, architects, and other industry pros to share some of their expertise. (This issue, we asked them for tips about setting a gorgeous table for your next dinner party, “10 Tips,” p. 22.) And, just in case you’re looking to get out of the valley for a bit, we have recommendations for an architecture/design-rich vacation in Scottsdale, Arizona (p. 36).

As always, I hope you enjoy this issue of Range as much as I have enjoyed putting it together … but not so much so that it keeps you from doing your job.

Dina Mishev Instagram @rangemag / @dinamishev

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www.shawwyoming.com

Trust. Value. Insight. Build On.

Chase Beninga Managing Partner

460 South Cache Jackson Hole, WY 307-733-8401

CONTRIBUTORS

(“Privacy with Views,” p. 32, “Oldie But Goodie,” p. 28) published her first article—about a family camping trip in the Bighorn Mountains—when she was a teenager.

It won her a travel writing scholarship from the Family Travel Forum. A Wisconsin native, Simma moved to Wyoming five years ago. Today her writing also appears in Dishing. Simma is working on launching a travel blog focused on solo female scuba diving, thescubadiaries.com.

Journalist MOLLY ABSOLON (“Smarty Homes,” p. 42) writes to support her outdoor habit. She’d rather be biking, skiing, hiking, or traveling than sitting at the computer, but the words pay the bills.

Absolon is the author of 15 books on outdoor skills and writes for regional publications on everything from design to people to sports. She lives in Victor, Idaho, with her husband and teenage daughter.

JEREMY PUGH (“Travel: Scottsdale, Arizona,” p. 36) is a travel writer, essayist, and author based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Currently the managing editor of Salt Lake magazine, Pugh’s writing appears in SKI, VIA, and Lonely Planet magazines. He authored the book 100 Things to Do in Salt Lake City Before You Die and his second book, Secret Salt Lake, will be published in fall 2019.

PUBLISHER Kevin Olson ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Adam Meyer EDITOR Dina Mishev ART DIRECTION Taylor-Ann Smith & Orijin Media COPY EDITOR Richard Anderson CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Molly Absolon Lila Edythe Mark Huffman Jeremy Pugh Samantha Simma Geraldine Stal Maggie Theodora

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

David Agnello Cole Buckhart Tuck Fauntleroy Lindsey Johnson Lindley Rust

ADVERTISING SALES Kal Stromberg - kal@tetonmediaworks.com AD DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Sarah Wilson

page 50 RANGE ISSUE NINE 8

Kyra Griffin

DISTRIBUTION Hank Smith

Kal Stromberg

Range magazine is published twice yearly.

P.O. Box 7445, Jackson, WY 83002 (307) 732-5900 / RangeJH.com © 2019 Teton Media Works. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this magazine’s original contents, whether in whole or part, requires written permission from the publisher.

Photograph (bottom) by David Agnello

SAMANTHA SIMMA

Control everything from anywhere.

At Jackson Hole AV, we take ownership of our projects and believe every step of the way is important to the final results. From the very first time we meet with you to the final day of in-house training, we’re here to make the entire process as smooth and as enjoyable as possible.

Home & Office Integration | Whole-House Audio & Video | Lighting | Window & Shade Control Home Theater & Media Rooms | Building Automation | Boardrooms | Design Services 307-733-2629 | www.JacksonHoleAV.com | Jackson, WY

WHAT INSPIRES ME Mark: I always go for window seats when I fly. I love looking down and seeing all the different patterns. I have a stack of photographs I’ve taken from planes. Closer to home, anyone can check out the Teton County GIS [geographic information system] for free. I find lots of patterns there too, and the detail is cool. You can also go back many years. Find the Teton County GIS server at tetoncountywy.gov

Bonny: A landscape architect needs a good hat for scoping out sites and construction observation. I love the Sunbody Reata hat [made in Guatemala from palm leafs] for its practicality, function, fit, style, and price. And I can ride my horses in it. From $63, available at sunbody.com

BONNY & MARK HERSHBERGER Landscape Architects | Hershberger Design

By Dina Mishev ∙ Photography by David Agnello WHERE WOULD YOU START IF you were tasked with rewilding a 1,100-acre inholding in Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) before it was assimilated into the park? How would you begin revitalizing the area around Jenny Lake, the singlemost visited spot in GTNP? Most people would be intimidated by the scope and permanence of either project, but landscape architects Bonny and Mark Hershberger rose to the challenge of both. (See what they did on the former by visiting GTNP’s Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve, which won a 2014 Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The latter, which was a five-year project, will be finished this summer.)

Mark founded Hershberger Design out of a storage room in the couple’s garage in Wilson in 2001. At that time, Bonny still worked for Aspen, Colorado-based Design Workshop, where she was the first female partner in that firm’s history. By 2004, Bonny says she “came to realize that I did my best work with Mark” and joined him at Hershberger Design. Today the firm has six employees, more awards for both public and residential projects than they can count, and a fierce appreciation for the natural landscape. “We try very hard not to do more than we need to,” Bonny says. “We work outside in a beautiful place, and the environment needs to speak the loudest.” Here the couple shares some of the things that inspire them.

Mark: I love the Wyoming landscape, but prefer its subtleties. I call it “white on white,” but really it’s just something that looks simple until you notice the textures. Then there’s a lot more there when you stare at it. I love looking at the vast monochromatic sage. I like that singularity of it and knowing that there is a complexity below.

Bonny: I’m not so much into literal representation, but more a thing’s essence. In her sculptures, Jane Rosen does an amazing job of distilling the character of the thing she depicts, and they speak to me because of that. [Jackson painter] September Vhay accomplishes the same thing with her red horses—she distills the animal down to that essence. Working on the LSR Preserve, we talked about stripping things away. It is not about dressing it up, but about distilling it down to its core. We view our work as art. See Jane Rosen’s work at Tayloe Piggott Gallery, 62 S. Glenwood St., 307/733-0555, janerosen.com; Altamira Fine Art represents September Vhay, 172 Center St., 307/739-4700, vhay.com

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T H E S PA C E W I T H I N

DEFINE becomes the reality of the building. space.

T H E SYour PA C E WITHIN

becomes the reality of the building.

–Frank Lloyd Wright –Frank Lloyd Wright

STUDIO@JJSTIREMANDESIGN.COM | 307-739-3008

jjstiremandesign.com 307-739-3008 307-739-3008jacque@jjstiremandesign.com jjstireman@wyoming.com jjstiremandesign.com

FAVORITES DESTROY TO ENJOY The earliest evidence of surprise balls comes from Native American cultures, some of which use balls of grass, twigs, and leather, among other materials, to tell the story of someone’s life. (The first layer represents birth, and additional layers represent significant events.) Surprise balls came to mainstream America as toys in the 1950s. They were created using approximately 100 feet of crepe paper ribbon, inside of which a number of prizes were hidden. Add some whimsy to your next party by giving guests one of Tops Malibu’s Surprize Balls, each of which contains six keepsakes—like whistles, seashells, brass charms, fortunes, and stickers—hidden inside. $18.75 each, available at Paper & Grace, 55 N. Glenwood St., 307/733-8900

LATHER UP

Photography by Cole Buckhart

Yes, the art paper that each bar of Little Flower custom soap comes in is almost too pretty to tear off. But then you catch a whiff of the smells inside and you can’t get at the soap—which is paraben-, phthalate-, and sulphate-free and scented only with essential oils— fast enough. Made by a husband-andwife team in Michigan, Little Flower’s scents include comfrey spearmint, woodsman, tea tree lime almond, poppy bergamot, and rosemary lemon mint. $6.50, available at MADE, 125 N. Cache St., 307/690-7957, littleflowersoap.com

KEEP IT FRESH Did you know airtight containers aren’t the best for food? Trapped air can destroy the freshness of everything from flour to sugar, herbs, nuts, and, most important to us, coffee. Meet Planetary Design’s Airscape coffee and food storage canister. A patented valve in the BPAfree lid forces air out and then locks the lid into place, ensuring your coffee will stay fresh longer. $30, available at Pearl Street Bagels, 145 W. Pearl Ave., 307/7391218, planetarydesign.com

SMELL & SUPPORT

Each Sydney Hale hand-poured candle has a burn time of approximately 50 hours. Still, we couldn’t help but buy several of them because the Virginiabased boutique candlemaker donates 10 percent of its profits to animal rescue organizations across the country— since 2010 it has given more than

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$150,000—and who doesn’t want to support animal rescue? Also we stocked up because we couldn’t settle on one scent, which include combinations like grapefruit + hibiscus, sea salt + bay rum, or tobacco + sandalwood. $28, available at MADE, 125 N. Cache St., 307-690-7957, sydneyhaleco.com

designing the places you gather | shannonwhitedesign.com

ARTFUL COASTERS

BAKE IN STYLE

Based in Livingston, Montana, St. John’s Supply Co. makes tomahawks and targets, and also smaller home accessories. While the two former items are certainly great conversation starters, the latter don’t require as much space and include practical items like colorful coasters made from leather and Pendleton wool, two classic Western materials. $11 each, available at Mountain Dandy, 125 N. Cache St., 307/690-0606, stjohnssupplyco.com

Whether you’re baking brownies or lasagna, you’ll likely find Falcon Enamelware’s 9.5-inch square baking tray the perfect size. The fact that every piece is as durable as it is timeless and elegant is a bonus. And, not that we’ve dropped any of our Falconware onto a bare concrete floor, but if we did it wouldn’t break. (It is possible it would chip, though.) Of course all of the British brand’s pieces are dishwashersafe and can handle oven temperatures up to 530 degrees Fahrenheit. $40, available at Aspens Market, 4015 N. Lake Creek Dr. #29, Wilson, 307/200-6140, us.falconenamelware.com

YOU NEED THIS Because you need a walnut cutting board with a silhouette of the Tetons on its top edge. That’s all. $160, available at Mountain Dandy, 125 N. Cache St., 307/690-0606

FUN FIRE Magic Fire Sticks are exactly what they sound like. Toss one into any wood-burning fire—we’re partial to campfires and backyard bonfires, but have also tried the living room fireplace—and oohh and ahh as the flames progress through the colors of the rainbow. $22/three, available at Paper & Grace, 55 N. Glenwood St., 307/733-8900

Photography by Cole Buckhart

DOGGIE DESIGN When you’re looking for water and food bowls for your dog that look as good as they function, go for Tall Tails’ Wood Designer Dog Bowl. Each bowl has a stainless steel insert that is dishwashersafe and a mango wood riser fitted with non-skid feet. From $19.95, available at Teton Tails, 250 W. Pearl Ave., 307/7399247, talltailsdog.com

PICTURE THIS Don’t stress over picking the perfect John Derian decoupage piece; instead invest in the John Derian Picture Book, an assortment of almost 300 oversize images of Derian’s creations, which are made by cutting and pasting vintage 18th- and 19th-century prints onto handblown glass trays, bowls, plates, and vases. Flipping through the book’s 368 pages, it’s easy to see why InStyle, Garden & Gun, and New York Magazine, among others, named it one of the best gift books of the year. $75, available at Paper & Grace, 55 N. Glenwood St., 307/733-8900

LUXE LINENS We don’t mind making a mess when we’ve got Danica Studio linen napkins to clean ourselves up with. The company’s design studio is in Vancouver, British Columbia, but its linen comes from vendors in India, some of whom parent company Now Designs has had relationships with for generations. So you’re not imagining it when Danica’s linen feels like the softest ever. $22 for two napkins, available at Pearl Street Market, 40 W. Pearl Ave., 307/733-1300, danicastudio.com RANGE ISSUE NINE 14

DESIGN IN EVERYTHING

MUST HAVE

The perfect bar carts and the essentials you should have on them.

By Maggie Theodora Photography by Cole Buckhart Styled by Zach Isler at Mountain Dandy Showroom BAR CARTS HAVE BEEN AROUND since the final third of the 19th century. Kind of.

The original bar carts weren’t made for crafting cocktails, but were tea trolleys. It wasn’t until post-Prohibition that they began to change. By the 1950s, the transformation was complete. Today, bar carts come in all sorts of styles and sizes. We asked Jackson Hole experts to share some of their favorites and, perhaps more importantly, the items essential to every home bar.

Shake It Up

“Craft bartenders around the world prefer a metal-on-metal shaker setup over the Boston shaker commonly found in home bars,” says Zach Isler, the beverage director/distiller at Jackson Hole Still Works. Find a hand-hammered copper shaker set for sale in Jackson Hole Still Works’ tasting room. $89.99, available at JH Still Works, 3940 S. Eagle View Dr., 307/699-8998, jhstillworks.com

Nod to History

The Best Bitters

“Bitters are the salt and pepper of cocktails, and an essential tool for bringing out the flavors you want most in your cocktail,” says Isler. Katie Schneberg, a botanist and herbalist, and Anthony Martino, an artist and designer, founded Bear Root Bitters here in 2017. They use extracts from locally gathered roots, barks, fruit, leaves, and flowers. From $8, available at Vertical Harvest, 155 W. Simpson Ave., bearrootbitters.com

“If a client asks for a low-profile piece that can be versatile and mobile and not take away from another hero in the room, Crate & Barrel’s Libations Platinum bar cart is the one,” says interior designer Meaghan Tozzi of Meaghan Tozzi Designs. We like the fact that this cart’s design is inspired by the tea trolleys that were bar carts’ direct predecessors, and love details like black leather-wrapped handles—they soften the cart’s nickel-plated iron finish—and the antique mirror glass bottom shelf. $599, crateandbarrel.com RANGE ISSUE NINE 16

The Repurposed Bar “I think it’s fun to use a small desk/dresser or other interesting piece of furniture—perhaps antique or rustic—in place of a traditional bar cart,” says Megan Gallagher, director of Jackson Hole Food & Wine, which hosts biannual multi-day food events. (The Winter Fest takes place in late February; the summer one is set for June 20-22, 2019.) “Wheels can be added if necessary, and if you use a dresser or sideboard you can put napkins and bar accessories in the drawers or cabinets.” Price varies, available in your imagination

Double Duty

Not everyone needs their bar cart to actually be a cart—i.e., have wheels and be mobile. If this sounds like you, consider McGuire Furniture’s Dornick Side Table. “This piece is reminiscent of hot summer days, with its classic woven shelf and mahogany top,” says Tozzi, who has a background in interior design, art curating, and furniture design. “I could see this as a beautiful bar/side table in a den or office to balance out other hard surfaces like stone. It would add warmth, beauty, and timelessness to a contemporary or classic Jackson home.” $1,195, 307/413-3511, mcguirefurniture.com

Mix Well “If you’re taking the time to make a great drink, it is important to use freshly squeezed juice and quality mixers,” Gallagher says.

“We like the Fever-Tree line, which has a nice tonic and soda waters in addition to a great ginger beer that makes a delicious Moscow Mule.” From $6, available at Pearl Street Market, 40 W. Pearl Ave., fever-tree.com 17

BONTECOU CONSTRUCTION HONESTY. INTEGRITY. EXPERIENCE. Since 1978

bontecouconstruction.com | 307.733.2990 RANGE ISSUE NINE 18

Resource for Recipes “There are only six cocktails.” The oldfashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whisky highball, and flip. This is what Alex Day, Nick Fauchald, and David Kaplan, the visionaries behind the Manhattan craft cocktail bar Death & Co., believe. The men wrote a 320-page book, Cocktail Codex, about how to perfect each “family.” The Chicago Tribune named the book one of the Top 10 cookbooks of 2018.

“Spend a little time with this book and you can’t go wrong,” Frechette says. $40, available at Aspens Market, 4015 N. Lake Creek Dr., Wilson, 307/200-6140

Spirit-ual Souvenier “Spirits are the perfect souvenir—mementos you can continually enjoy and share,” says John Frechette, who owns Mountain Dandy, MADE, and MD Showroom with Christian Burch. “Jackson Hole Still Works makes a fantastic gin with a uniquely Western take on the traditional London dry style.” From $40, available in local liquor stores as well as at the JH Still Works distillery, 3940 S. Eagle View Dr., 307/699-8998, jhstillworks.com

Timeless Carts

Brown Jordan is the Rolls Royce of outdoor furniture, but that doesn’t mean its pieces are only suitable for outside. Tozzi is taken with the company’s Quantum Serving Cart because of the fluid lines and the choice of materials. “You could use this piece as a statement in your dining room, kitchen, or study,” she says. From $2,292, 307/413-3511, brownjordan.com

The Perfect Glasses “Because drinking wine out of a solo cup really changes the experience, we’re big proponents of finding a set of glasses you really love,” Frechette says. Glassblower Ben Dombey (a former local who worked at Trio Bistro and has a Master of Fine Arts degree) became obsessed with creating

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the perfect rocks glass after a trip to Scotland in 2011. “With their substantial weight and handblown form, they complement a whiskey on the rocks like none other,” Frechette says. $60 each, available at Mountain Dandy, 125 N. Cache St., glassblowerben.com

NEIGHBORHOODS

PAINTBR U

SH TRAIL

INDIAN PAINTBRUSH This subdivision tucked into a hillside south of Wilson is hidden and, because of smart planning, neighbors often can’t see each other’s homes.

By Mark Huffman Photograph by Tuck Fauntleroy A LOOK AT THE INDIAN PAINTBRUSH neighborhood from its bottom makes you think it would be a better ski hill than a place to live.

It’s steep, and the rise from the bottom to the dead-end top of the main road, Paintbrush Trail, is close to 1,000 feet.

When developer Joe Aveni first thought about subdividing the mountainside a mile and a half south of Wilson, real estate professionals suggested it would be good territory for a wilderness vacation. One told him that “the only thing you can do with that property is put a few cabins in,” Aveni recalled recently.

“But that wasn’t my intention,” Aveni says. “My intention was to build a housing development that would attract local people. I wasn’t interested

in advertising in Florida and California. I thought local people would be the best buyers, and that turned out to be true.”

He was right, says John Becker, former owner of the Calico Restaurant on Moose-Wilson Road.

Becker, a self-described “rental hippy” in 1978, was looking for a place to buy, but found himself priced out of places he liked. He looked at Indian Paintbrush, which was then just a few years old.

It wasn’t love at first sight: “I didn’t want to buy up there because it was a long way from anywhere, and it was up on the hill,” Becker says.

But now, “in hindsight, the reasons I didn’t want to live up in Paintbrush are the reasons it’s the most spectacular subdivision in the valley.”

It wasn’t until 1917 that people began filing to take this land off the hands of the federal government. Within a few years much of what is now Indian Paintbrush was owned by the Schofield family. In 1953 the land was bought

by Jack McNeely, who ran a kids ranch on Fall Creek Road. By 1969 he was running a classified ad in The Jackson Hole Guide offering 265 acres for sale. One slightly interested party was Aveni.

But only slightly.

“He knew I was a developer and told me I should buy it,” says Aveni, a Cleveland native

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who was well known in that city’s real estate and developing business. “I didn’t want to buy it. He finally said, ‘Look, I can’t do what you can do.

You have the experience.’ So finally I gave in and bought the 265 acres.” Aveni paid about $500,000 for the land.

Today he remembers Indian Paintbrush, his only project in Jackson Hole, with fondness. “It was a gorgeous piece of land,” he recalls. Aveni hired logger Joe Pivik, who ran a sawmill at the mouth of nearby Mosquito Creek, to cut trees and grade a road. He installed a 24,000-gallon water tank and lines, and paved about 3.5 miles of road, some of which approached a 10 percent grade. He organized a homeowners association that had design rules and that banned fences and felling trees more than 3 inches thick.

Aveni had to fight the county to subdivide the land, he says, but in 1973 he eventually won approval for 76 lots ranging from 1.5 to 5 acres.

The first phase, which included 17 lots, went on the market at $8,000 an acre. The second phase was $12,000 an acre and the third $15,000 per acre. By the time he got to developing lots along McNeely Lane, a side road to the south, the cost of some land had hit $100,000 an acre. Early in the neighborhood’s development Aveni built

himself a house on 3 acres at the bottom of the hill.

Aveni settled on “Indian Paintbrush” as the name because he says he was tired of how many places in Jackson Hole were named “Teton-this” or “Aspens-that.” Indian paintbrush is the state flower.

Aveni kept a lot at the top of the main road for himself, thinking he would eventually build a house. Over the years people tried to buy it from him and he demurred, at least until someone liked the steep, tree-shrouded lot so much they offered him $500,000 for it. It was the last lot he sold.

Aveni’s idea of a place for locals was the case in early years. Becker bought 1.5 acres in 1978 for $23,000, borrowed $60,000, and began building his house in stages. “I built what I could afford,” he says. “The first 500 square feet, then the garage, then the basement. It’s a stick-built frame house. It’s now 900 square feet downstairs and 400 [square feet] upstairs.”

Aveni says, “People who worked and raised kids built houses here. It was a neighborhood, friendly, because people knew each other from the community, from their jobs. Eighty percent of the houses in the early days were built by local people, often young people with young families.”

But the same economics that have affected the valley in general have hit Indian Paintbrush.

These days, Becker says, “the demographics have

changed pretty radically.” He serves as president of the HOA and estimates that less than 20 percent of the houses are full-time homes.

Prices also reflect the changes. Becker thinks “this silly house of mine is probably worth $700,000,” and if he were to sell it “it would immediately be scraped.” A county planner told him a few years back that his land could accommodate a house of 5,000 square feet.

IN HINDSIGHT, THE REASONS I DIDN’T WANT TO LIVE UP IN PAINTBRUSH ARE THE REASONS IT’S THE MOST SPECTACULAR SUBDIVISION IN THE VALLEY.” [ JOHN BECKER, RESIDENT ]

Demand is strong. Recent listings showed only two Indian Paintbrush houses and one lot on the market. A 5,700-square-foot, four-bedroom house on 4.8 acres near the bottom was listed at $5.7 million. More typical of the area was an 1,800-square-foot, three-bedroom house on 3 acres listed for $895,000. A 4-acre lot was offered for $829,000. “Until lately, a house would come on the market and sit for one or two years, but

the dynamic has changed,” Becker says. “Now if they’re priced right they sell immediately.”

Becker is resigned to the fact that old houses are likely to be replaced with much bigger structures, but he thinks the neighborhood’s design will protect the feel of the place. “The nature of the subdivision ... it’ll change because of the high-end building,” he says. “But it will always look the same, just with bigger houses.”

Realtor Brandon Spackman, of Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty, agrees about the attractions of the area. He bought a lot here in 2000 and built a house in 2005. He likes the forest and the wildlife, quiet, and privacy. Because of the layout, “all the sites are fairly private,” he says.

“I think people are surprised how many houses there are up there.”

In spite of changes, Spackman says Indian Paintbrush “remains a place to be. It’s on the West Bank, and people have a little acreage. And even though it’s gone up, like everyplace else, it’s more affordable than neighboring subdivisions like Crescent H.” Becker thinks he made a wise decision to buy and build there. “The longer I spend up here the more I love it,” he says. “It was such a brilliant job of developing.” Aveni, now 87, remains proud of Indian Paintbrush. “It turned out to be a fine subdivision,” he says. “The people who live up there love it.”

TEN TIPS

SETTING THE TABLE Take your next dinner party up a notch with a well-dressed table.

By Lila Edythe

AS MUCH AS YOU MIGHT HATE this idea after having spent hours in the kitchen cooking, dinner parties aren’t just about the food. “You’re bringing together people who are important to you, and how your table is set can take things up a notch and make them feel super special.

Or not,” says Lisa Mack, the founder of Hitched Jackson Hole, an event and wedding planning company.

Boutique baker and interior designer Lindsey Johnson agrees: “A flat table is boring and uninviting.” Fear not; We asked Mack, Johnson, and Ali Cohane, the co-owner and designer/ stylist behind Persephone Bakery Café and Picnic to share their tips for creating a table that will make your guests feel super special.

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Monochromatic does not work well in a food presentation.

Color is really important. You can use bright splashes in food—we love watermelon radishes—or flowers or linens.

Pewter and enamels are nice because they don’t break.

Sturdy can be beautiful.

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Composing a cheese board, I want it to be overflowing with tastes and textures—spreads, gherkins, meats, and cheese. Put some things in little glass jars or small dishes. To get more of the perfectly imperfect look, cut the cheese into random sizes and have these flow off the main piece of cheese, so they’re kind of like grocery store cubes but more rustic and interesting.

Photograph by Lindley Rust

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Fresh flowers always help a table. I like wildflowers because they don’t need the arranging other flowers do. Setting them on this table in small bunches is not super time-intensive, but the flowers are still beautiful.

ALI AND KEVIN COHANE HAD NO IDEA THEY WERE STARTING A MINI EMPIRE WHEN THEY OPENED PERSEPHONE BAKERY CAFÉ IN A LOG CABIN—ITS EXTERIOR FRESHLY PAINTED WHITE—ONE BLOCK OFF THE TOWN SQUARE IN 2014. BUT TODAY THE COUPLE—KEVIN IS THE CORDON BLEU-TRAINED PASTRY CHEF AND ALI IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THINGS RELATED TO DESIGN AND STYLE— HAVE PERSEPHONE CAFÉ, THE WEST JACKSON HOTSPOT PICNIC, AND, AS OF SPRING 2019, PERSEPHONE WEST IN THE ASPENS ON TETON VILLAGE ROAD. AND THEN THERE’S THE “SUPER PERSEPHONE” (NOT ITS REAL NAME) THAT IS SET TO OPEN SOMETIME IN 2020 IN THE REMODELED AND EXPANDED COE CABIN, BUILT IN 1915 AND ONE BLOCK FROM THE ORIGINAL PERSEPHONE LOCATION.

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Microgreens always help with presentation—they finish any dish, look thoughtful, and add delicious flavors. We get microgreens from Vertical Harvest. (Pictured here is sorrel on top of feta and pea shoots on burrata.)

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I love mixing dishes. Everything does not have to match. There’s an idea about the perfection of imperfection, and I like to bring that to tables, using elements that come together in a beautiful way that almost seems haphazard.

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TEN TIPS

“AT A DINNER PARTY, FOOD GOES A LONG WAY,” SAYS LISA MACK, WHO FOUNDED HITCHED JACKSON HOLE, A WEDDING AND EVENT PLANNING COMPANY, IN 2014 AFTER WORKING IN EVENTS AT SPRING CREEK RANCH AND THE FOUR SEASONS JACKSON HOLE. “BUT WHEN YOU’RE SITTING AT A DINNER FOR A LONG TIME TALKING TO PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT OR WHO YOU ARE JUST GETTING TO KNOW, A BEAUTIFUL TABLE MAKES THE EVENING EVEN BETTER.” MACK OFTEN COLLABORATES WITH SAMI VOLCANSEK, WHO DOES FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGN AT MAGNOLIA RANCH JH, WHICH SHE FOUNDED IN 2011 WITH HER NOW-HUSBAND LUKE. VOLCANSEK AND MACK AGREE ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF TEXTURES AND PATTERNS IN A TABLE SETTING. “THE RIGHT MIX OF TEXTURES AND PATTERNS MAKES FOR DYNAMIC DESIGN,” VOLCANSEK SAYS.

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Photograph by Brian Harrington

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The clusters of greenery at each setting are not all identical in size or composition. Making them different makes each one feel special and thoughtful.

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We love doing big, lush florals, but you can also walk around the local market or outside and use the seasonal bounty.

It is fun to surprise guests with juxtapositions. This table is formal, yet edgy: There are cut-crystal glasses, but the flatware is gunmetal; the guests’ names are written in calligraphy on pieces of black leather.

Consider getting plates and glassware that aren’t what you have at the house. It’s a minimal fee but can make things so special. [Editor’s note: Jacksonbased XOWYO recently began offering a beautifully curated selection of tabletop rentals including handmade pieces sourced from Italy, Portugal, France, and the U.S. Previously these items had to be shipped in. Browse the catalog at xowyo.com.]

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Table linens set the tone. Generally, the heavier a linen is, the more formal the event. The patterned linen on this table is pretty heavy, which sets a formal tone.

Lighter linen would be more casual.

Decide what kind of feeling you’re going for and pick a linen that supports it.

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A menu at each place setting gives guests something to get excited about.

| A BOUTIQUE DESIGN STUDIO | www.dwellingjh.com I 307-690-5452 RANGE ISSUE NINE 26

TEN TIPS I like to have only one or two colors of flowers. I would use different varieties of flowers, but stick to all-white for a clean, elegant, and classic look. Single-color arrangements look better in photos, too.

LINDSEY JOHNSON GRADUATED FROM DESIGN SCHOOL AND SPENT MORE THAN A DECADE DOING INTERIORS FOR COMMERCIAL AND CUSTOM RESIDENTIAL PROJECTS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BEFORE MOVING TO JACKSON HOLE WITH HER HUSBAND AND THREE SONS IN 2016. SINCE MAKING THE MOVE TO WYOMING, JOHNSON HAS GONE FROM DOING INTERIOR DESIGN TO EDIBLE DESIGN: IN EARLY 2018 SHE FOUNDED THE BOUTIQUE BAKERY LADY IN THE WILD WEST. (IF YOU’VE GOT A SWEET TOOTH AND AREN’T ALREADY FOLLOWING @LADYINTHEWILDWEST ON INSTAGRAM, DO SO IMMEDIATELY.) JOHNSON SAYS SHE SPENDS HER DAYS “THINKING ABOUT CAKE DESIGN, CREATING THE PERFECT STYLING OF DESSERT BARS, AND MAKING EDIBLE ART TO BRING PEOPLE JOY.”

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A flat table is boring and uninviting—think about height and scale. Stack plates—a charger on the bottom with a dinner plate, salad plate, and bowl on top—to layer. You can use things like old crate boxes or galvanized tin platters turned upside down to display food.

Photograph by Lindsey Johnson

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I love things on a table that are unexpected and can be conversation starters—like if you have a vintage collection of glassware that you found on Etsy or at a flea market. Guests will notice them and likely will ask questions.

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Use table runners instead of placemats. Placemats can overcrowd a table and make it look messy. A clean, beautiful table runner is all you need.

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Place cards show you’re a considerate host and allow you to add another creative design element to the table. They don’t have to be fancy, either. Gather river rocks and write guests’ names on them or on small chalkboards. Place cards are another way to be unique.

ARTISAN

OLDIE BUT GOODIE Stonemasonry is one of the oldest trades in the world. Mason Nick Tonks says little about it has changed.

By Samantha Simma Photography by Cole Buckhart

“IT’S DIRTY AND IT’S REALLY hard work. But I’ve never done anything so rewarding.” This is how Nick Tonks, a mason and owner of Tonks Masonry, describes his job. “What attracted me to it is seeing the fruits of your labor.”

Tonks gets great satisfaction at the end of his projects, when the scaffolding is removed, the stone is washed, and he can stand back to admire the beautiful result of his hard work. Working with the raw, natural materials and the variables that come with them, “It is an art,” Tonks says.

“And it’s a system with a lot of moving parts.

You’re not working with straight vertical or horizontal lines.” Bringing together materials of uneven sizes and surfaces, he says, “You either have an eye for it or you don’t.”

While Tonks Masonry employs around 50 people and Tonks could spend all his time delegating and managing, he makes sure to work on projects himself. “I build a lot of our fireplaces and focal work, but everything ends with my sign-off.” When selecting the projects he wants to personally work on, “I really like projects that challenge me,” he says. A challenging project for Tonks could include work with large boulders or a big stone mantel and hearth. About the latter he says that even though it looks like a giant puzzle, “It doesn’t really go together like a jigsaw puzzle: You have to make the pieces.” (More on making pieces later, but here’s a hint: To achieve a natural aesthetic, it’s all done by hand.) A challenge of pretty much every project Tonks Masonry takes on is meeting the combined visions of architects, homeowners, interior designers, and landscape designers. “You’re trying to put together the vision of several people—that’s a big challenge,” Tonks says.

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A unique selection of locally made ceramics, home goods, jewelry, accessories and children’s gifts.

IT DOESN’T REALLY GO TOGETHER LIKE A JIGSAW PUZZLE: YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE PIECES.” [ NICK TONKS, MASON ]

While many aspects of architecture and building have been aided by automation and machinery, masonry is very much as it always has been. And that’s saying a lot, since stonemasonry is one of the oldest trades in human history. Famous buildings crafted by stonemasons over the millennia include the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, the Egyptian pyramids, and the Great Wall of China. “We try to automate what we can,” Tonks says, but for the most part, “masonry hasn’t changed since they built the pyramids.” The few things that have changed— like lift towers—make moving stone easier. Lift towers allow today’s stonemasons to lift up to 3,000-pound totes.

Unchanged is that stones are hand-picked and hand-laid. Tonks says, “Every stone is still worked by hand, picked out of a field by hand, put on pallets by hand, unloaded by hand, and put on the wall by hand.” While modern saws can cut stones, Tonks says the saw lines interfere with the natural aesthetic clients want from stone.

“Every change has to be made with a hammer and chisel,” he says. It’s no surprise that stone is one of the most expensive materials for homeowners.

Tonks got into stonemasonry after working as a carpenter and an excavator. His grandfather was a builder, and would sometimes bring a young Tonks to a job site. “He’d take a block of wood and hand me a box of nails and a hammer and tell me, ‘I don’t want to see one square inch of this wood—pound these nails in,’” Tonks says. After he grew up and began to work in construction himself, Tonks says the bricklayers on projects fascinated his mathematically inclined mind. He learned everything he knows from older stonemasons and soaked in whatever they would teach him. “I was a sponge, I wanted to learn,” he says.

Tonks Masonry usually has between 15 and 20 projects going on simultaneously, and the average project lasts about two years. Tonks’ longest was four years. “We’re right in with the concrete guys at the very beginning, and we’re next to the landscapers as the last ones out,” Tonks says. At the beginning, stonemasons work on fireplaces, which are structural components. At the end, they clean the last stones of patios and pathways alongside the landscapers.

Tonks says that the average interior job his crew works includes large, focal fireplaces and hearths, stone archways, and spiral stone staircases. On an exterior, Tonks might work

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ARTISAN

on stone or brick veneers, patios, pathways, water features, and retaining walls. One client wanted a three-sided outdoor space that looked like it rose seamlessly from the landscape. “They wanted [the walls] to look like they’ve been there for one hundred years,” Tonks says.

Just as Tonks grew up going to job sites with his grandfather, his two oldest sons, ages 21 and 15, and his 24-year-old son-in-law have experienced work “on the wall.”

(Tonks also has a 7-year-old son, but “obviously he hasn’t worked for us yet.”) Tonks says he can drive around any corner in Jackson and see a project he has worked on.

“And when I’m driving around with my grandkids, they’ll still be there,” he says. “I can’t take all the credit, there’s a lot of hands in it. It’s really rewarding when people look at what you’ve done and they love it. That’s why I keep doing it.”

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Rendering courtesy of JLF Architects

ARCHITECTURE

PRIVACY

With Views RANGE ISSUE NINE 32

The challenge of this Shooting Star home was making the most of the views without sacrificing privacy.

By Samantha Simma

A FAMILY OF SIX FROM New York hired JLF Architects to design a Jackson Hole sanctuary for them on a 0.73-acre site in Shooting Star, a luxury community near the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR). The site presented two main views: Sleeping Indian to the east and, to the northwest, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and the Teton Range. The program the couple requested from Logan Leachman at JLF Architects included five bedrooms, a shared office, a library, a TV room, a large mudroom with ample storage space, two dining areas, and, anticipating sharing the house with guests, a kid-friendly area. (Leachman overachieved in the latter by including two separate, genderspecific bunkrooms.) Also, the clients wanted the home to feel private despite the density of the neighborhood, and they wanted a hot tub on a second-floor deck.

During a home’s design phase, JLF Architects—which was

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founded in Bozeman, Montana in 1979, opened an office in Jackson in 1989, and has designed seven other custom homes in Shooting Star—uses what it calls “conceptual bubble diagrams.” Bubbles are drawn for each of the spaces clients want their home to have and then labeled with the name of the space—master suite, pantry, game room, library, kitchen, etc. The size of each oval is scaled to correspond to the size of the room it represents (e.g., the living room oval is bigger than a bathroom oval). Leachman says, “The loosely drawn bubbles free up your mind and engage the client in understanding room relationships and site relationships without being confined to thinking about the details of how rooms fit and function.” Leachman worked with the clients arranging and rearranging bubbles on a diagram of the lot until they settled on the final design.

The process took about 12 months.

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ARCHITECTURE

Renderings courtesy of JLF Architects

Teton County building codes allow singlefamily residences to include up to 8,000 square feet of habitable space, but certain Shooting Star lots, including this one, limit homes to 7,000 square feet. Fitting the client’s program into this square footage was a challenge and required unique angles and even a curve. The latter “was an interesting way to connect the angles we needed,” Leachman says. Adding to the challenge were neighbors on two sides (north and south) who had built right up to the setback (as this house will be). “We wanted to strike a balance between creating privacy to the next-door neighbors while taking advantage of the views in both directions,” Leachman says.

Because the eastern side of the lot borders Shooting Star’s practice golf range, which ensures that side will remain undeveloped and eastern views will remain unobstructed, the home was ultimately sited and designed with the Sleeping Indian as the main view corridor. But Leachman also maintained views (and privacy) looking toward JHMR to the northwest by creative use of angles and by working closely with Verdone Landscape Architects. Windows in the main entry, living area, master bedroom, and kitchen frame the Indian. A second-story game room, hot tub deck, and second guest master suite look out to the tram and JHMR. Another significant design move was siting the garage almost parallel, rather than perpendicular, to the street. This helped inform the home’s horseshoe shape and allowed for an interior courtyard that Leachman says “creates privacy on a lot that wasn’t all that private.” The courtyard is hugged on three sides by the house and “serves as an entry while offering privacy,” Leachman says. This main entrance also offers direct access to a guest suite and the mudroom.

Second-story rooms and decks overlook it.

Because of the home’s horseshoe shape, it looks smaller than it is. “If you drive past this project, it’s similar in size to other Shooting Star homes, but from the street it doesn’t appear to be that large of a house,” Leachman says.

Throughout the home, the materials palette is contemporary and clean—steel, glass, stacked stone, and reclaimed wood.

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TRAVEL

DESERT REVIVAL

By Jeremy Pugh

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA—PHOENIX’S POSH NEIGHBOR— is dotted with gated communities, resorts, spas, and fancy hotels. The state of Arizona as a whole remains best known to retirees, snowbirds, and a particular brand of Don’t Tread on Me conservatism, but Phoenix and Scottsdale are drawing a new generation with their art, architecture, and design.

This isn’t that unexpected. After all, two giants of architecture—Frank Lloyd Wright and Paolo Soleri—were Scottsdale residents, having lived in homes here that they designed: The former lived in the fastidiously designed Taliesin West and the latter in the chaotic Cosanti.

Beyond these estates, Phoenix and Scottsdale have an extensive stock of architecturally interesting older homes and buildings, especially mid-century projects from the 1940s to ’60s. Today, Scottsdale’s stuffy reputation is giving way to a second look from a younger generation, and spring and early summer is the perfect time to explore this new scene.

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Taliesin West

GET YOUR ARCHITECTURE ON Frank Lloyd Wright came to Arizona in the 1930s to create a space where he could work in peace and train his apprentices. He built Taliesin West (named in concert with his Wisconsin workshop, Taliesin) in what was then the middle of nowhere—26 miles from Phoenix. Wright and his students built everything at Taliesin West (12621 N. Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd., Scottsdale, franklloydwright.org/taliesin-west) by hand, using materials from the surrounding desert.

He invented methods to engineer the plentiful rocks and boulders to build walls and harvested timber from nearby woods, all to the end of working with, instead of against, the terrain.

“There were simple characteristic silhouettes to go by, tremendous drifts and heaps of sunburned desert rocks were nearby to be used,” Wright said.

“We got it all together with the landscape.”

Today Taliesin West still trains architecture students in Wright’s methods. In a tradition dating back to the school’s earliest days, students are required to stay in tents in the desert, and design and build their own desert shelters to live in. Wright was a madman for order, and this National Historic Landmark is a marvel of thoughtful design and building. Not a blade of grass is out of place. The site offers tours daily.

If Frank Lloyd Wright was a madman for order, Paolo Soleri was just a madman. Although his reputation has recently been tarnished by posthumous allegations of sexual abuse, Soleri’s work remains an important part of design history. Soleri came to Taliesin West in 1946.

He was an Italian architecture student and was among Wright’s apprentices. Briefly. His wild nature, manic energy, and boundary-pushing designs didn’t mesh with Taliesin’s monastic

environment. He also challenged Wright on the national stage, winning exhibitions in New York and making the cover of Architectural Digest, the Rolling Stone of architecture. Although there is no definitive account of why Soleri was expelled from Taliesin West, Claire Carter, the curator at The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (7374 E. Second St., Scottsdale, 480/874-4666, smoca.org) who has studied Soleri’s career extensively, believes the splashy Italian’s success in New York was a threat to Wright’s near-domination of the American architectural scene. “Soleri was brash, cocky, and his work was getting noticed in important circles,” she says. “I suspect that wasn’t to Mr. Wright’s liking.” Whatever the reason, Soleri left Taliesin for Italy in 1950, where he designed one of his most important buildings, Ceramica Artistica Solimene, a large ceramics factory on the Amalfi Coast.

Soleri could not, however, just let things lie. He returned to Arizona in 1956 to establish his own rival school and workshop, which he called Cosanti (6433 E. Doubletree Ranch Rd., Paradise Valley, 480/948-6145, cosanti.com).

Cosanti remains a workshop where apprentices fire Soleri’s Cosanti Bells—elaborate bronze or ceramic wind chimes—to help fund the continued work on Soleri’s masterwork Arcosanti (see p. 40). Where Taliesin West is all right angles (Wright angles?), Cosanti is wild and organic. Soleri pioneered a technique of building up huge mounds of desert silt, covering them in concrete, and digging out the dirt, leaving behind a dome structure that inspired George Lucas’ design of the Skywalker moisture farm in Star Wars. Tours daily.

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TRAVEL

BRING IT HOME Old Town Scottsdale has a fantastic selection of funky consignment and vintage stores. Find highend, one-of-a-kind vintage clothing at Fashion

by Robert Black (7144 E. 1st Ave., Scottsdale, 480/664-7770, fashionbyrobertblack.com) and Vintage

by Misty (7046 E. 5th Ave., Scottsdale, 480/522-6875, vintagebymisty.com). For a chill, boho vibe, take a snack break from shopping and visit the New Wave Market and adjacent Super Chunk Sweets & Treats (7120 E 6th Ave., #19 and #20, Scottsdale, 602/736-2383, newwavemarket.com, superchunk.me).

Get the brownies. After you’re fortified, you absolutely must visit Cattle Track Arts (6105 N. Cattletrack Rd., Scottsdale, cattletrack.org). This artists commune is a wild collection of local crafters, artisans, and performances. Be sure to check the website to see what’s going on. For a smorgasbord of mid-century modern furniture, venture into Phoenix and stop by Red Modern (201 E. Camelback Rd., Phoenix, 602/256-9620) and Modern Manor (4130 N. 7th Ave., Phoenix, 602/266-3376, modernmanorstore.com).

The Doors by Donald Lipski is part of the Scottsdale Public Art Program.

PLAY

Hiking in the Arizona desert

Now that you understand the underpinnings of Scottsdale’s art, architecture, and design world, it’s time to enjoy the desert––specifically the Salt River. Yes, a river. The Salt River flows past the cities of Mesa, Tempe, and Scottsdale and is a haven for wildlife. Birds, river otters, and herds of wild horses find their way to the flowing water, and a kayaking trip is a riot of desert life. Kayak the Salt with a guide from Arizona Outback Adventures (866/455-1601, aoa-adventures.com). Or spend a day hiking in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve (18333 N. Thompson Peak Pkwy., Scottsdale, 480/312-7013, mcdowellsonoran.org). The preserve was set

aside in 1990 by a citizen’s initiative to keep the growing sprawl of the greater Phoenix area at bay. Today it is nearly 36,000 acres—an area larger than the cities of Tempe and Paradise Valley combined—of permanently protected land. For more art and culture, take a walking or bike tour of the Scottsdale Public Art Program (scottsdalepublicart.org), a diverse collection of 70 permanent and 30 temporary artworks that include traditional bronzes like GeorgeAnn Tognoni’s trio of galloping horses, and contemporary and experiential installations like James Turrell’s SkySpace at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.

Wild horses playing in the Salt River.

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TRAVEL

At the foot of Camelback Mountain lies Mountain Shadows (5445 E. Lincoln Dr., Scottsdale, 480/6245400, mountainshadows.com), formerly a resort to the stars (think Bob Hope and Lucille Ball) who came to escape the flashbulb paparazzi. Although it eventually fell into disrepair, a new heyday has arrived for it. Fastidiously renovated in the nowretro decor that is so chic, it’s chic again. For even more of a throwback vibe, visit the Hermosa Inn (5532 N. Palo Cristi Rd., Paradise Valley, 602/9558614, hermosainn.com). Handcrafted in the 1930s by cowboy artist Lon Megargee as his residence and art studio, this hacienda with its 34 guest casitas is like staying at Hopalong Cassidy’s house, if he had one. (We assume he did.) If boutiqueon-top-of-boutique style, with a dash of the artisanal and the hand-crafted, is more your bag, consider the Bespoke Inn (3701 N. Marshall Way, Scottsdale, 844/861-6715, bespokeinn.com). Bespoke Inn shares a courtyard with Virtù (480/946-3477, virtuscottsdale.com), a James Beard-nominated, chef-driven restaurant.

Images courtesy of Experience Scottsdale

STAY

Hermosa Inn

Acrosanti

SOLERI’S UTOPIAN DREAM: ACROSANTI

Mountain Shadows

Seventy miles north of Phoenix lies Arcosanti (arcosanti.org), an ongoing endeavor to build one of Paolo Soleri’s fantastic cities of the future. Soleri thought big, and he drafted plans for hundreds of cities. He coined the term “arcology,” a commingling of architecture and ecology, and published a book with that name. He began construction on Arcosanti in 1970 to demonstrate how urban conditions could be improved while minimizing the destructive impact on the planet that modern sprawl generates. Acolytes still journey to Arcosanti to join intensive five-week-long workshops where they study Soleri’s work and techniques and continue the city’s construction.

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FnB restaurant

DINE Scottsdale’s dining scene has mirrored the town’s artistic revival. Take for example, FnB (7125 E. 5th Ave. #31, 480/2844777, fnbrestaurant.com), which is a haven of local food and local wine. Yes, Arizona has a growing wine industry.

Helmed by James Beard Award-finalist chef Charleen Badman, who is known for her collaborations with local farmers, FnB highlights a different Arizona growing region every four weeks. Plus, wine. For a marriage of food and architecture (and more wine) try Postino (4821 N. Scottsdale Rd., Scottsdale, 602/428-4444, postinowinecafe.com).

Postino’s owners find mid-century modern commercial buildings (think banks and post offices) and turn them into restaurant spaces. Also, their happy hour is bananas—$5 glasses of wine and pitchers of beer before 5 p.m. and $20 for a board of bruschetta and a bottle of wine after 8 p.m.

For a taste of Old Arizona—yes, there was an old Arizona; it was Spanish—visit the margarita heaven The Mission (3815 N. Brown Ave., Scottsdale, 480/636-5005, themissionaz.com) in Old Town Scottsdale. Try the Malbec-braised short rib and chorizo porchetta. For a truly unique dining adventure, find yourself in the Sonoran Desert with Cloth and Flame (480/428-6028, clothandflame.com), which sets up dining experiences at a fully appointed table amid the saguaro cacti, just in time for a spectacular desert sunset.

DESIGN

SMARTY HOMES

A smart living room can make life simpler and design cleaner.

Home tech––from smart doorbells to voice-activated thermometers–– looks good and wants to make your life easier.

By Molly Absolon A FEW YEARS BACK, A FRIEND bought the best remote control available at that time. It was supposed to turn on the television, control sound and volume, play music, change channels or CDs, and stream Spotify. The marketing materials proclaimed this was everything anyone ever needed a remote control to do.

There was one problem: It didn’t work. Or rather, we—two fairly intelligent (albeit middleage) adults—could not figure out how to make it

work. The result? The remote sat untouched in its charging station while we manually turned on the television and speakers and adjusted the sound, volume, and channels.

Hollywood’s image of futuristic homes has fueled our imaginations for years. Everything, according to the movies, will be automatic, streamlined, efficient, and controlled with a word, button, or programmed schedule someday soon. The Jetsons have a robot maid and walk on their ceiling in space boots. In the 2013 Spike Jonze movie Her, the lead character plays a three-dimensional video game projected throughout the room—no screen or controls in sight. His hand movements control the action, while his operating system talks to him through an ear bud.

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But the reality is that for a long time smarthome technology has been glitchy and expensive.

Programmable thermostats have been around for nearly 20 years, but in 2009 Energy Star temporarily stopped recommending them—not because they didn’t save energy, but because they were too hard for consumers to operate.

It’s the same with voice recognition. How many times have you found yourself yelling at Siri when she gives you the totally wrong answer?

And how many remotes sit, like my friend’s, unused on the shelf?

It looks like this is finally changing though: Smart-home technology has gotten, well, smart.

Simultaneously, it has gotten more user-friendly.

“Now you can use voice commands to dim your lights, set the temperature, or turn on the music

or television,” says DelRay Hill, the president of Jackson’s Custom Electronic Consultants Inc. “Most of the growing pains are behind us. Smarthome technology is becoming more mainstream and reliable.”

To demonstrate, Hill pulls out his phone, opens an app, and in seconds the shades in the living room go down, lights come on, and music begins to play. He can operate these functions manually via the app on his phone or schedule them to happen automatically, also via the app.

He says it enhances his lifestyle and saves energy and time. Rich Ashburn, the president/owner of Jackson Hole AV, elaborates: “You can start the oven or turn up the heat with your phone. That’s what people love about smart technology.”

For those of us who want to stick our toes into the water but aren’t ready to take the full plunge, there are do-it-yourself options. For roughly $250 you can get the Ecobee4, a smart thermostat that has Amazon’s personal assistant, Alexa, built in so you can control all your smart devices with it. With Alexa’s help, the Ecobee4 plays music, generates shopping lists, looks up information on the internet, turns on the television, calls a

friend, or adjusts the temperature when someone enters a room.

Plus, the Ecobee 4’s sleek design and size (a 4.29-by-4.29-inch black square with rounded edges) allows it to blend into your home décor without calling attention to itself.

For lighting, the Philips Hue White starter kit, which retails for less than $100, comes with two bulbs and a hub to connect them to your other smart-home technology (like Ecobee4), so you can dim lights or turn them off and on remotely. The Nest Hello video doorbell (pictured to the right) retails for roughly $230 and allows you to see who’s at your door 24/7. It even learns to recognize familiar faces—in the same way Facebook learns who your friends are—and will announce them when they arrive on your doorstep. “With a smart doorbell you get a notification if UPS has delivered a package,” says Ashburn. “You know when the kids get home.”

But the more gadgets you invest in, the more confusing it can become to manage them. You

can buy a centralized smart hub that allows you to integrate all of the tech in your house on your own. Or, if you don’t want to lose your mind, you can get a professional to develop a customized smarthome system tailored to your specific wants.

(Remember the days of trying to program the VCR? That’s simple compared to this!)

“Many smart devices communicate only through their own app,” says Hill, who has seen a 7 percent annual increase in the number of people incorporating some kind of smart technology into their homes over the past decade or so. Other devices do talk across brands—for example, some Google, Amazon, and Apple devices work with thirdparty items. “But it’s best to try to plan everything out ahead and make sure you are dealing with components that can work together,” Hill says.

“Otherwise you could be looking at four or more different apps to run your home.”

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DESIGN

Hill says the majority of today’s new homes have some form of smart-home technology designed into them at the planning stage. The most popular kinds of tech include robust network infrastructure for internet access, thermostats, motorized window shades, lighting, entertainment, cameras, and security.

Still, “Many times people don’t consider adding technology to their home until they are well into the build process, and at that point they are somewhat limited as to what can be done,” he says. “This is unfortunate. It should be considered and added to the build at the onset.

A good, realistic place to start is to allow 5 to 7.5 percent of the overall construction budget for electronics and smart-home features.” Adding these after the initial build will cost more.

Ashburn has come up with smart systems for 8,000-square-foot and larger homes, where coordinated control is essential just because of the scale of the systems and the complexity of the demands the homeowners put on them. “For luxury homeowners, integrated smart-home technology is a necessity,” he says. “For the mass-market consumer, it makes life simpler and more convenient.”

45

Carolyn and Andy Ripps already had this sofa and pair of swivel chairs. “The sofa was probably the first piece of ‘grown-up’ furniture that we purchased for our old house,” Carolyn says. “We’ve had it for about 10 years and it’s a good reminder of why you might want to invest in non-disposable furniture. A solid couch in a neutral fabric can last a lifetime, and we’ve just changed up the pillows over the years.” These pillows are alpaca from RH. John Thorkildsen, the couple’s friend and an interior designer, helped them choose new fabric for the swivel chairs. Carolyn found the vintage cane-back settee at Eclectic Consignment and spray painted it black. The coffee table from One Kings Lane is faux shagreen with brass inlay. The print is by artist Squeak Carnwath from Tayloe Piggott Gallery.

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MORE THAN A FEELING

When remodeling their house, the Rippses were guided by how they wanted their home to feel rather than look.

By Maggie Theodora Photography by Tuck Fauntleroy

47

“T

his is the house that Instagram built,” says Carolyn Ripps—only half-joking—about the Cape Codstyle home she and her husband

Andy and their two kids moved into last May after six months of remodeling. The social media manager for Picnic and Persephone and former gallerist at Tayloe Piggott Gallery says it was natural to find ideas and inspiration on the social media platform Instagram. “I’d be on there for work and before I knew it would be going down an interior design rabbit hole,” she says.

While Ripps might have gone to the internet for inspiration, driving all of her decisionmaking was the feeling she and Andy both wanted the house to have. “It was easier for us to describe the feeling we wanted more than the look,” she says. “We were similar in that we both wanted a house that was warm and welcoming and comforting and filled with things that have meaning and [that we] collected in our lives and on our travels.”

Longtime locals, the Rippses had been living in a 3-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom Boise Cascade duplex in West Jackson that Andy bought in 2005. Carolyn says she loved the duplex, especially after doing a complete remodel on it about five years ago, but as their kids, now four and six, grew, the couple wanted something with more space. “Our budget had us looking at a lot of fixer-uppers. We’d been actively looking for several years and put in a number of offers, but nothing came through.”

Andy, the branch manager and a senior loan officer at Guild Mortgage’s Jackson office, looked at the Cape Cod-style house in East Jackson shortly after it went on the market in June 2017.

“I remember us talking about it then,” says Carolyn, who grew up in Massachusetts and whose parents now live in Cape Cod. “He said it’d be right up my alley—a cute, New Englandstyle house.” But, because it was out of their price

This page: “I love how tall the ceiling is here and had a vision of hanging this Isamu Noguchi light from the moment we first started the remodel,” says Carolyn. “Eventually we’d like to add a sliding glass door here for summertime deck dining, and I have my eyes on a giant piece of art for the tall wall.” The couple has had this dining table for years, though it’s been repainted a few times. “I definitely have a thing with painting old furniture to give it new life,” Carolyn says.

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range, Carolyn didn’t spend much time thinking about it until December, when the sellers reduced the price. She immediately went to look at it and immediately fell in love with it.

“I remember driving away and going too fast down Cache Creek Drive. Someone yelled at me to slow down, which I now do to people. My mind was spinning with how we could transform it—keeping the things that were amazing and charming like wide baseboards and the wood floors—but making it ours.” She says the house also appealed to her because it reminded her of the homes she and Andy had grown up in. “My parents built a house when I was in second grade.

Andy’s parents built a house when he was in second grade. He grew up on a dirt road. I grew up on a dirt road. This house is on a dirt road.

Now that we’re here, it seems inevitable.”

The couple closed on the house at the end of January. “Within a week of closing, I had pretty much everything picked out,” says Carolyn, who as a kid kept a binder full of ideas for her future dream house. (“I’d go through my mom’s Pottery Barn catalogs and architecture magazines,” she says.) The day they closed she placed the order for a custom-designed Home Depot kitchen. “We did a Home Depot kitchen when we remodeled our duplex and loved it. They’re solid wood and have most of the bells and whistles you can get with custom cabinetry, but are much more affordable.” Carolyn says that because the house “was at the top of what we wanted to spend, doing the remodel we were budget-focused.” This was part of the reason Carolyn acted as the general contractor.

But they weren’t so budget-focused they didn’t allow themselves some splurges. “We made sure to save money in one area so we could spend more on something else,” Carolyn says. The kitchen cabinets are from Home Depot, but they ordered a John Boos butcher block countertop for the kitchen island. The lighting sconces on either side of the kitchen sink are from a small Los Angeles-based company, but the wicker chandelier in the media room is from IKEA. The couple bought appliances from JB Mechanical. “I wanted the look of a fully integrated built-in fridge, but not the SubZero price,” Carolyn says. “I walked into [JB Mechanical] and asked them how I could make

This rocking chair is vintage—it belonged to Andy Ripps’ parents—and the couple reupholstered it. The wedding photo is of Carolyn’s mom. The bookshelf was bought at Bet the Ranch, owned by Hillary Munro, a friend of the couple’s,

49

the look I wanted happen with more affordable options.” They directed her to a Fischer Paykel fridge and a Miele gas range that was a floor model. When it came to many of the ideas she got from Instagram, Carolyn says, “I’d look for similar materials or items here in Jackson and at a more accessible price point.”

Now that the family has lived in the house for almost a year, Carolyn says, “I’m happy with everything we’ve done and picked out so far, and we’re looking forward to seeing how it will grow, evolve, and change.” Asked whether the home feels like she and Andy imagined, Carolyn replies without hesitation: “Yes.”

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The kitchen shows how the couple blended budget items with spurges. The KraftMaid cabinets (in mushroom) come from Home Depot, but the custom maple butcher block counter is by John Boos. The counter is Silestone and the backsplash tile is Zellige

by Cle Tile (found at Earth Elements). Carolyn discovered the Jones County Road sconces above the sink on Instagram. The painting to the left of the stove is by Teton Valley artist Mike Piggott; the piece to the right is by Mari Andrews. “We love collecting art from artists we know,” Carolyn says.

Top: Carolyn’s parents purchased this pair of Cornelia von Mengershausen paintings from her aunt Stella Aguirre McGregor’s gallery THE SPACE in 1990. “The gallery is no longer, but was a very conceptual gallery in Boston for the time,” Carolyn says. “We have another piece by the same artist hanging in the same room, and I love the connection to my past in addition to the works themselves. They were in my living room growing up, but when my father moved years ago and didn’t have room for them, I was the lucky recipient.”

Bottom: “Last winter, Andy and I went to Japan to celebrate a big birthday and discovered this very cool store in Tokyo’s Ginza district,” Carolyn says. “Everything in the store was a little treasure, from beautiful ceramic dishes to funny light-up croissants, and we both were drawn to this particular artist. This piece was the only one that could fit easily in our ski bag, so it came home with us.” The vase filled with tulips is by ceramic artist Eleanor Anderson, a former valley resident.

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Maturing OF METRO PLATEAU THE

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Ten years after the first residents moved in, we check in with the valley’s original live-work community.

By Lila Edythe Photography by David Agnello

A

rchitect Stephen Dynia’s West Jackson Metro Plateau project is not extraordinary design.

That’s not being critical of Dynia. He says exactly these words himself less than five minutes into our conversation about Metro Plateau, which includes his own 2,000-square-foot office space and thirteen 2,000-square-foot live-work condos on the side of East Gros Ventre Butte: “I don’t consider this project to be extraordinary design,” he says.

While not extraordinary design, the Metro Plateau condos, which were completed in three stages between 2011 and 2017, are thoughtful and functional design executed creatively and affordably. Metro Plateau was the valley’s first multi-unit live-work development. The first four condos were built for $110 per square foot in 2011. Five additional units were added in 2013. The four final condos were finished in 2017. Also included in the development is a 2,000-square-foot office space that is home to Dynia Architects.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term “live-work,” it means a space designed for living and for working.

At Metro Plateau, each of the thirteen condos has a 1,000-square-foot ground floor (work) and 1,000-square-foot upstairs loft (live). The vision for the project went beyond merely people living above their businesses, though. “At the time we started, there were one-off live-work projects here, but not yet multiple ones that were their own community,” Dynia says. “We wanted [Metro Plateau] residents to be that live-work community.”

THE METRO PLATEAU CONDOS ARE THOUGHTFUL AND FUNCTIONAL DESIGN EXECUTED CREATIVELY AND AFFORDABLY. METRO PLATEAU WAS THE VALLEY’S FIRST MULTI-UNIT LIVE-WORK DEVELOPMENT.

Live-work spaces in Jackson Hole are not without controversy.

Following Metro Plateau were Pine Box, a seven-unit live-work development on Alpine Way adjacent to Powderhorn Park, and Farmhouse, a fifteen-unit project on South Highway 89 near Jackson Whole Grocer. Detractors argue that some live-work units, especially in Pine Box, are used wholly as work spaces and do nothing to help alleviate the shortage of affordable workforce housing, which was part of the reason these projects were approved.

But without Metro Plateau, Samuel Singer, the founder of Wyoming Stargazing, a nonprofit that rents in the development, wouldn’t be able to hire summer staff. “Last summer I had three people I wanted to hire, but none of them could find a place to live,” says Singer, who had been living in the upstairs loft himself. “I moved out of upstairs and offered it to them.” Wyoming Stargazing uses

the ground floor as its headquarters and storage for most of the gear it needs to do more than 200 stargazing programs annually, some of which are free to the public.

Adjacent to Wyoming Stargazing, photographer Todd Williams lives and works. He travels often to shoot on location for clients including Indian motorcycles, Polaris Industries, Citibank, and Gatorade, but he also uses his condo’s ground floor as a photography studio and editing space. “These spaces were designed to be modern and very raw—there’s lots of concrete, steel, and glass. They’re easy to customize, are efficient, and have the feeling of a modern loft in a city.” Williams says he likes the last attribute especially: “I’ve got these big windows that feel like they should be overlooking a city, but instead I look out and see nature and Snow King.” And as nice as the views are, “We are a little community up here,” he says.

Top: Metro Plateau, Teton County’s first live-work community was built in three stages between 2011 and 2017. It has 13 units that each offer 1,000 square feet of living space and another 1,000 square feet meant to be used as office space.

Bottom: The first stage of Metro Plateau to be completed was the 2,000-square-foot office space of Dynia Architects (shown here). Dynia Architects conceived of and designed the community.

53

Scott Anderson moved into Metro Plateau last summer and built five sound studios on his condo’s ground floor that he uses to do radio work. Anderson says he liked the development because he needed a place he could live and also build out as a work space. Since moving in, he has come to appreciate the condo for other reasons: “It is like a little island up here. It’s not down in town or out in the county. When people first come up here their reaction is usually, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this is up here.’ It’s not a living situation you’d expect to find in Jackson.” Also, from his big, south-facing front windows, Anderson can see the radio towers on top of Snow King. “That’s what I like to look at, and it’s not a view you normally get anywhere else,” he says.

As unusual as Metro Plateau’s residents say it is for the valley, it is like every other neighborhood here in an important way: “Our unofficial mascot is a dog,” Williams says. Singer’s girlfriend’s dog Telly comes to work with Singer every day and “knows everyone up here,” Singer says. “She is the real connective tissue in the community.”

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Top: Each of the 13 Metro Plateau condos has a 1,000 squarefoot upstairs designed for living. All have big south-facing windows and, because a goal was to keep construction costs low, minimal finishes. “One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how we could do these and leave materials exposed and have them become design features instead of looking unfinished,” Dynia says. [Exposed cinderblocks kept construction costs down and are a design feature.]

This Page: A dog enjoys Metro Plateau’s large south-facing front windows.

Bottom Right: The nonprofit Wyoming Stargazing has been renting a Metro Plateau condo since October 2016. The group uses the downstairs to work, for storage and board meetings, and to stage the more than 200 programs it does annually. “In the evenings before the stargazing programs begin, leaders come here and pick up all their equipment,” says Dr. Samuel Singer, the group’s founder. Several of Wyoming Stargazers’ ten employees live upstairs seasonally. “Having this housing for employees has been critical for our success,” Singer says.

Bottom Left: The Dynia Architects office

55

Top: Metro Plateau resident Scott Anderson constructed five sound studios on his condo’s ground floor he uses for radio work. He lives upstairs.

Bottom: The bedroom area in a Metro Plateau unit.

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70 S. King St., Jackson, WY 83002 | (307) 699-0133 | office@tkgconstruction.com 55

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THE HEALTHY HOUSE Biophilic design, which incorporates the natural world into spaces, might make you healthier.

By Geraldine Stal Photography courtesy of Ward + Blake Architects

59

F

or weeks, the owners of a newish home on the edge of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and the Bridger-Teton National Forest were puzzled by shoulder-height smudges on many of their windows overlooking a patio, part of which was a green roof planted with native grasses. The puzzle was solved when they spotted a moose walking on the patio; the animal’s nose was at the exact height of the window smudges.

“They literally had wildlife looking in their windows,” says Tom Ward, a principal at Ward + Blake Architects and the architect of the home. It wasn’t just moose that came visiting. Before the oil applied as a sealant to the back deck had cured, a black bear walked across it and left footprints behind. The contractor asked the owners if they wanted to reseal the deck and cover up the footprints, and they said, “no.”

Ward says, “Those footprints are now preserved forever.”

Wildlife in the yard is not unusual for a Jackson Hole home, but did you know seeing wildlife out your windows could make you happier and healthier?

Meet “biophilic design,” which comes from “biophilia,” defined as the inherent human inclination to affiliate with nature. Biophilic design is a recent term in the architecture world and describes connecting a living/working space to the natural world with the goal of increasing the well being of the people inside it.

“Humans have an intrinsic need to feel a part of the natural environment, but we are so far removed from it as a society,” Ward says. Americans now spend an average of 90 percent of their time indoors. Wildlife is just one aspect of biophilic design. Others are the use of natural materials and incorporating natural light, views of nature, vegetation, and experiences of the natural world—all with the idea of

making inside feel more like outside.

And biophilic design isn’t solely for the benefit of people. “It can make your stewardship of the land better,” Ward says. “The promise of a biophilic design philosophy is that you heighten the sense of connectivity to what’s around you. You’re more likely to protect and care for a landscape when you feel a part of it.”

These Teton Village homeowners didn’t use the term “biophilic design” during the design process, but, Ward says, “from the beginning all the key components … were part of their program. They had spent significant time on the site after they bought it and had a good sense of its natural topography, vegetation, and wildlife.

They wanted a real discernable connection to the land—which is where biophilic design comes in strongly.”

The end result is more than abundant wildlife wandering around the 0.63 acre yard, which abuts the national forest and trails leading into Grand Teton National Park. “This house is more a pavilion than a house,” Ward says. “So much of it opens completely that the connection between what is going on outside and what’s going on inside starts to fuse. The line between outdoor and indoor is blurry.” It is possible to wander through the house from back to front and be inside for only a few seconds. Virtually every room opens to the outside some way or other. “Wherever in the house you are, you are aware of what is going on outside,” Ward says.

The homeowners tell Ward they love how this connection feels. “They’ve been in the house for several years now, and [its connection to the landscape] hasn’t worn off for them. We get a steady stream of comments and observations from them about how alive the house and site feel and how the house makes them feel: happy.”

Materials play an important role in biophilic design. Here, Western hemlock, a deciduous fir tree that annually loses its needles and is native to the Rocky Mountains, was used for the beams, ceilings, and trim in the master bedroom and kitchen. “It is wood that grows in the forests around Jackson,” Ward says. “The coloration and grain are bonuses. It has a beautiful parallel grain and doesn’t go orange like Douglas fir does.” The kitchen cabinetry is alder.

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GERMAN-BORN AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST ERICH FROMM COINED THE TERM “BIOPHILIA” IN HIS 1973 BOOK THE ANATOMY OF HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS. HE DESCRIBED BIOPHILIA AS “THE PASSIONATE LOVE OF LIFE AND OF ALL THAT IS ALIVE.” IN 1984, NOTED AMERICAN BIOLOGIST EDWARD O. WILSON PUBLISHED BIOPHILIA, IN WHICH HE PROPOSED THAT THE TENDENCY OF HUMANS TO FOCUS ON AND TO AFFILIATE WITH NATURE AND OTHER LIFE FORMS HAS, IN PART, A GENETIC BASIS. THIS IS CALLED THE “BIOPHILIA HYPOTHESIS.” THE BIOPHILIC DESIGN INITIATIVE WAS FOUNDED IN 2016 BY A GROUP OF ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, AND RESEARCHERS TO HELP MAKE THE MOVEMENT MORE MAINSTREAM.

The exterior corners of the house, which is clad in custom-made Western cedar, “almost interlock like a log house,” Ward says. “But this is definitely not a log house.” From inside the house, as you ascend the stairway shown in this photo, “You get an incredible view to the woods outside,” Ward says. A goal of the home’s design was for its owners to always be aware of what’s going on outside when they are inside.

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WOO-WOO OR WORTHY? While biophilic design could be disregarded as suspiciously New Age-y, the idea that a human connection to nature is important has been around for centuries. “The root of the environmental movement, whether it’s Henry David Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson or Aldo Leopold, was very much a celebration of our connection to the natural world and how it’s fundamental to who we are as individuals and as a species,” wrote Stephen R. Kellert, author of Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World. More recently, there is evidence suggesting that the natural world can benefit human health. Studies have shown that surgical patients go home sooner if their hospital room has a view of the outside, a walk in a park boosts the concentration of children with attention hyperactivity disorder, and spending time in a forest can boost immune function while lowering stress levels and blood pressure.

TOP: A principle tenet of biophilic design is that a space invites its occupants to be more aware of the natural world. Here windows allow in abundant natural light while balconies “serve very little purpose other than to provide a small space to view the sunrise with a good cup of coffee, smell the pine scent, and to unobtrusively spy on the occasional bear sauntering by,” says architect Tom Ward.

LEFT: “Entering this home is like walking into a really nice piece of Swedish furniture,” Ward says. “The attention to detail and the finish carpentry on this house is a marvel. I should be more cynical about that at this point in my career, but I’m not.”

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CARING FOR OVER 125 PROPERTIES

61

HOME sweet HOME

THE SKI HOUSE AS TOLD BY MAGGIE AND LES GIBSON Photograph by Cole Buckhart WE THOUGHT WE HAD BUILT and were living in our dream house—a 2,700-square-foot home south of Wilson. But it turns out an investment property in the oldest part of Teton Village that we bought during the recession after 9/11 is our dream house, even if it came with shag carpeting, was 1,100 square feet smaller than our Wilson house, and had only a shed instead of a garage. It was one of the first houses built in the Village, back around 1965.

We had it in the rental pool for several years, but after seeing how often renters trashed it we realized how attached we were to it. In 2005, we moved into it with our daughters Reily and Anna, who were in first and third grade at the time. Back then, there weren’t as many families living out in Teton Village, and our daughters definitely pooh-poohed it, but now that they’ve gone away to college and have this home to come back to they’ve actually thanked us for raising them here. And we’ve come to love living in Teton Village year-round.

We spend most of our time as a family together in the cozy kitchen/living room area, but what is really special is our access to the outside. A trail across the road skis right to the tram dock. We call North Colter Ridge “Home Run,” because skiing down it we’re coming right at our house (and from the kitchen sink, it’s the run we look at). In summer, hiking trails are all around us. We see wildlife all the time—bears, moose, foxes, and, most often, deer. We’re one mile from Grand Teton National Park. Les works in Teton Village and loves that he can walk to work. Before the resort opens and after it closes, we can skin up it right from the front door. In the spring, Les goes corn skiing in the morning and works in the greenhouse in the afternoon. (Tomatoes grow in Teton Village!)

Today, this property is likely more valuable without this small, old house on it, but not to us.

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