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Modest Space, Mondo Views Smooth Move It Takes a Village Lubing the Leaves Navajo Rug Obsession On the Way to a ‘Forever’ Home
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contents
shelter SMO OTH MOVE By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer A local family gets a “recycled” abode.
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IT TAK E S A VIL L AG E By Samantha Tisdel Wright “Decidedly un-hippie-ish” cohousing is coming to Ridgway.
50
ON THE WAY TO ‘FORE VER’
‘T H E VALUE O F T E AM WO R K’
By Leslie Vreeland
By Leslie Vreeland
Pets and people both benefit from Ridgway’s Second Chance Humane Society.
24 A GUI DE TO N AVA JO RUGS By Tanya Ishikawa Exploring one man’s obsession with the fine art of weaving.
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MOD EST S PAC E, MONDO VI E WS By Leslie Vreeland An award-winning Telluride architect makes the most of the “footprint” of a Mountain Village home.
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In a “razor’s edge” market, a cadre of designers and builders gets it right.
58 A N E W, AF F O R DAB L E AE S T H E T IC By Katie Klingsporn “Dreams come true in this town”: Spruce House maximizes space, views and good looks.
64 LUB IN G T H E L E AV E S By Ari LeVaux Salads that satisfy — and not just in summer.
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editor’s letter
“W
hat high-end home buyers
Colorado Avenue. (The owner fretted, “I kept picturing a house
demand has changed,” a
moving down Main Street, and what if it falls over? ... I focused
recent report in the
on all the things that could go wrong instead of the positives.”)
Washington Post found.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer relates the highly entertaining
“No longer do they covet
story in “Smooth Move,” on page 19.
massive mansions.” Instead, the report went
Elsewhere in this issue, you’ll find an example of a fourbedroom family-house project in Mountain Village that has
on, these purchasers seek “amenity-rich homes well-suited to
been so successful, owners have been snapping new models
their lifestyles…with well-appointed materials and finishes.”
up as soon as each place is finished. Realtor Bruce MacIntire
I’m happy to say that this describes every single abode —
credits the success of these homes to teamwork (and, I would
well, human abode — in this
add, design talent and a pitch
Summer 2018 issue of Shelter,
perfect idea of what buyers are
regardless of whether the owner
looking for). Learn more on
is a high-end homebuyer or
page 58.
someone lucky enough to win
More affordable luxuries
the housing lottery and land a
await within our pages: Navajo
sleek, affordable condomium in
weavings from Telluride
downtown Telluride.
resident Bill Gordon, a
Affordable in Telluride, you
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passionate collector himself,
say? Yes, indeed: Trevor Hall
who recently opened a shop
and Peter Lundeen’s affordable
on Colorado Ave., and —
housing is not only a winner
less costly still — a guide
with its residents; the FUSE
to satisfying summer salads
team’s project also took home
from writer Ari LeVaux.
the Audience Choice Award
As any pet owner will
winner at last year’s Art + Architecture weekend, “a festival
tell you, owning a dog (or a cat) isn’t cheap. I know: I was
devoted to cutting-edge home design paired with art and food,”
once owned by a one-eared West Highland White Terrier
Katie Klingsporn writes in her story about the fortunate denizens
who, my husband used to joke, had a tape loop in his small-
of Spruce House (page 64).
but-highly-opinionated brain with exactly one phrase on it:
Another home in this issue will be spotlighted in this year’s
“What about Coach?” My cosseted canine cost a lot, but his
Art + Architecture weekend, which takes place July 21-22. It is
love was priceless. If you feel the same, you’ll be glad to learn
a Mountain Village house designed by Luke Trujillo of TruLinea,
that the Second Chance Humane Society, one of this region’s
a 3,500-square-foot home that lives and feels much larger. To
most beloved nonprofits (see the story on page 24), is greatly
help save costs, the owners had Trujillo “gut” an existing home
expanding this summer, offering more to pets and their people
on the same lot; the luminous result includes a huge picture-
than ever before, including a Rainbow Bridge.
frame window and three sides of open space. See it on page 42. Another Telluride home, also a pre-existing home that was completely rebuilt, involved a nerve-wracking cruise down
Where else but in this extraordinary region could you ever find that? —Leslie
shelter PUBLISHER Andrew Mirrington ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Dusty Atherton EDITOR Leslie Vreeland COPY EDITOR Leslie Vreeland CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rick Bickhart CONTRIBUTORS Gerry Efinger, Tanya Ishikawa, Katie Klingsporn, Ari LeVaux, Whit Richardson, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Leslie Vreeland, Samantha Tisdel Wright ADVERTISING SALES Dusty Atherton, Lea Battey, Jenny Klein, David Nunn, Maureen Pelisson CIRCULATION Telluride Delivers ON THE COVER 114 Arizona Street, Mountain Village (Photo by Whit Richardson) Shelter is published twice a year by Telluride Local Media LLC, 307 E. Colorado Avenue, Telluride, Colorado 81435. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. To advertise in Shelter, call 970.728.9788. For editorial inquiries, please email editor@telluridenews.com.
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contributors
shelter Ari’s representative
ARI LEVAUX Ari lives in Missoula, Montana, where he pursues, eats and writes
Rosemerry
about food.
TANYA ISHIKAWA began telling people’s stories and editing words while studying at the University of Colorado, followed by working at a public relations firm in Tokyo, Japan. After a brief venture into guiding Japanese guests to Native American reservations, Tanya returned to writing as a weekly newspaper reporter. Winning dozens of awards for her articles and photographs, she moved on to freelance assignments for magazines, specialty publications, books, websites, films and other media. When not at her computer, she loves family time, travel and dance.
Tanya
KATIE KLINGSPORN is a radio reporter and freelance writer who has covered southwest Colorado since 2006. She lives in Norwood with her husband, dog and chickens, where she enjoys the big skies and quiet days.
IMAGE BY REAL LIFE PHOTOGRAPHS
Leslie
When ROSEMERRY WAHTOLA TROMMER isn’t writing about houses, she’s probably writing poems. Her most recent collection, “Naked for Tea,” was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. She lives with her husband and their two children on the banks of the San Miguel River where she gardens, bakes bread, and does everything she can to get out of playing Monopoly.
Katie
Writer LESLIE VREELAND pivots for a living, switching between her roles as newspaper writer for the Watch and the Telluride Daily Planet most of the year, and, twice annually, the editor of Shelter. She divides her time between Ridgway and Telluride as well, continually captivated by the way the landscape’s light, shadows and colors seem to change every day.
SAMANTHA TISDEL WRIGHT lives and writes in Silverton, Colo., in a house on a hill at the end of town that her husband John built from scratch. The nearest neighbors are a bit more than a stone’s throw away, and the window above her desk frames a perfect unobstructed view of Grand Turk and Sultan mountains. She wasn’t so sure about this whole cohousing thing when she started working on the story about Alpenglow Cohousing for this issue of Shelter, but the idea is beginning to grow on her — especially the part about impromptu glasses of wine on the porch with your neighbors.
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A Local Family Gets a “Recycled” Home
smooth
move >>>
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Lars and Annie Carlson’s daughters herald the arrival of their “new” home, soon to be transformed even further.
BY R O S E M E R RY WA H TO L A T R O M M E R PHOTOS COURTESY OF ANNIE CARLSON
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t was pre-spring of 2014. Longtime Telluride residents Lars and Annie Carlson were, like so many others, trying to figure out a way to afford a home of their own in town. They were looking at lots and working with a local architect. With their budget in mind, the architect had proposed a 1,950-square-foot house. And then, the Carlson’s received one of those offers you just can’t refuse. Though they almost did. They had been considering a lot in Butcher Creek, a small subdivision just west of Telluride High School, and talking with the owner, Peter Sante, the principal of Sante Architects. Coincidentally, Lars had been the realtor who sold Sante the lot in 2001. Now, 13 years later, he was hoping to purchase the parcel for himself. “But Lars thought it was worth x, and I thought x plus,” says Sante, and so the Carlsons walked away from the deal. That’s when Sante got creative. “How do you add value?” he thought. It just so happened that at the same time, one of Sante’s clients had a large lot in the Caribou subdivision on Willow on the east side of town. The new lot’s owners loved the location, but not the house that came with it, and they planned to tear it down and start with a clean slate. The house in question, built in 1994, was 3,700 square feet, and had a separate 500-square-foot guesthouse above a garage. And Sante thought, “Well, there are two structures there, and they probably won’t both fit. But one might. Maybe I can add value by adding a house.” He had the plans and did some figuring, and he found, to his luck, that both structures fit on the lot by barely six inches. He called Lars, and said something like, “Would you buy my lot if it comes with a free house? It’s a one-time offer. Think about it for a day, and if you say no, I will initiate conversations with other people.” Lars’s response was an immediate and resounding yes. “We’ll take a house!” he said. He recalls, “I knew how much it sold for, $1,000 a foot, and knew it couldn’t be that bad. It was no fixer upper.” Annie’s response was an immediate, resounding no. “I said, ‘No way in hell,’ ” she recalls. “‘That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. I don’t want it, even if it is free.’” But Sante and Lars continued to explore the idea a little bit more, and Sante was able
Above left: the “old” house and garage in its former locale. Bottom photo: moving day begins.
The Carlson’s new/old abode rumbles up Colorado Ave. on its way to a new lot, and a new life. “I was playing in a golf tournament that day,” Lars Carlson recalled, “when someone sent me a text that said, ‘I’m watching your house move down main street.’”
A home on the way home.
“There has to be a compelling reason to move it … either you love it, or there is a huge financial gain, because there are a lot of hurdles you have to overcome in that process and a lot of stress.” to explain that they would essentially only be moving the inside of the house. The bricks on the outside were just a façade, which could be removed. The interior could be remodeled to become a more open layout, in keeping with what Annie had envisioned for her home. “Thank goodness for Peter’s vision,” Annie says. “He showed me the possibilities and then I got on board and got excited about it.” A deal was struck, and the clock began to tick. There were several important time constraints. One: Getting the house off the lot so the new owners could begin their build. And two: The town had several stipulations about when the house could be moved, which took into account the town’s busy construction schedule and the upcoming Bluegrass Festival. Lars hired Sante to be the architect. He was personally invested in quickly drawing and engineering plans for the remodel and relocation. Then Lars worked out a deal with the house’s previous owners, who were going to have to pay $60,000 to get it into the dump. “I said, what if you pay me half of that to get it out of your way,” he recalled. They agreed. And then he hired Noah Vogenthaler of Vogy’s House Moving out of Montrose. Vogenthaler is a can-do man. “Don’t ask us what we can move,” he says, “just tell us where you want it. Everything is moveable.” His confidence went a long way with Annie, who was still worried about the process. “I was concerned about logistics,” she says. “I kept picturing a house going down Main Street, and what if it falls over? What if they set it down on the >>>
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foundation wrong and then the house is unstable? What if we can’t get it to the site? I focused on all the things that could go wrong instead of on the positives.” Vogenthaler gave her his signature pledge: “You can put a glass of wine on the counter when we move it, and it won’t spill a drop.” Vogenthaler’s first assessment of the project could be summed up in two words. “No problem.” He told Lars they would move it in two sections — the house as one, and the garage as another. But it turned out there was a problem. When Vogenthaler had first considered the project, there had been an unbuilt lot to the north that he would be able to use. Several months later — and just one week before the move — a building had gone up on the unbuilt lot. Now the home couldn’t be transported in a single section. What were the Carlsons to do? They had already purchased the lot, but they only wanted it if it came with the house. Said Vogenthaler, “No problem.” He cut the home in half, and it was moved in two sections. This did, of course, add to the cost. If it had been transported as a single structure, the Carlson’s could have used the original wiring, which would have saved them about $10,000. Plus, there were also the costs of having the building cut apart and put back together. As it was, the move went smoothly. It took less than 20 minutes for the garage to make it through town. A week later, the two sections of the house followed. “I was playing in a golf tournament that day,” Lars recalls, “when someone sent me a text with a photo and a note: ‘I’m watching your house move down main street right now.’” The Carlsons didn’t, in fact, try the wine glass trick, but they were impressed with how relatively easy that part of the process was after the stress of preparing for the move. And the Town of Telluride was also very accommodating, allowing the Carlsons to store their garage on the side of the highway at the entrance to town for three weeks as the project progressed. Once the stress of the move was done, the Carlsons could focus on the numerous upsides of their choice. They had received, along with the house, all its appliances, including likenew Fisher & Paykel ovens, a Sub-Zero refrigerator and a washer and drier that
Above: Lars and Annie’s daughters celebrate in their new digs with the man of the house. Below, the new kitchen, twice as large as before.
“But now, I’m so glad we did it.”
Top photo: the relocated house (left) and garage today. Below, the living room was opened up, giving the home a light, airy feel.
they could put in the guesthouse. The Carlsons re-used all the interior doors and all the original glass. And with Sante’s help, they made the home their own. They did a light reconfigure of the master bedroom upstairs, building a wall so that it was no longer open to the family room below and removing a skylight to conform to HARC (Historic and Architectural Review Commission) guidelines. They made the kitchen twice as big, and added a mud and gear room. They opened up the living room, so that the home now has a light and airy feel. And they customized the bottom floor for the Carson girls, including bedrooms and a recreation room. Local metalworker Todd Herman did the stairwells and the columns, and Annie and Lars themselves selected all the interior finishes, creating a spacious, modern home of their own. One of the most surprising parts of this story is that not only did the two structures fit on the lot by a hair, the views from the existing windows aligned perfectly with the view lines. From the living room, there are views to the east of Ajax and Ingram Basin; to the south rises the ski area. And to the west, the valley floor opens down the valley. “You’d think we planned it that way,” Lars says. The bottom line? By recycling a home, the Carlsons were able to be in the house just after the new year in 2015, months sooner than if they had built. Their home is more than 2,000 square feet larger than what they could have afforded to build. And, as Annie says, “I felt good about the fact we were saving a house from the dumpster, doing something green.” The couple has some advice for those considering a house-recycling project of their own. Annie says, “There has to be a compelling reason to move it … either you love it, or there is a huge financial gain, because there are a lot of hurdles you have to overcome in that process and a lot of stress. But now, I’m so glad we did it.” Says Sante, “I am happy for them. It was a busy time, a lot of juggling. But in hindsight, it was exciting. And it all worked.” He adds, “I walked away from the project thinking, ‘Why don’t I do this more often?’ I will be thinking of this now, and will try to be more aware of what fun could be in store if you can be a part of the receiving end of a recycled home.”
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Angel Ridge Ranch (Photo by Kathryn Lair)
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On the Way to a ‘Forever Home’ Pets, people benefit at Ridgway’s Second Chance Humane Society >>>
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BY LESLIE VREELAND
T
here used to be a sign along Highway 62 in downtown Ridgway designating it a “dogfriendly” community. The sign is gone. It’s no longer needed! Why limit your community’s affinity to dogs when cats count just as much? That would certainly be the sentiment within the Cat Castle at Angel Ridge Ranch, a sprawling compound just down the road, off Highway 550. Here, likely for the first time in their lives, abandoned cats are housed according to their preferences. “We try to make their accomodations as home-like as possible,” said Kelly Goodin, executive director of the Second Chance Humane Society, which is situated on Angel Ridge Ranch. That means “putting them in a nice quiet space where they can hang,” and offering them “places where they can climb and be cats. We have four
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Left, an Angel Ridge border collie-mix is a very good dog. (Image by Stacey Joubert, Real Life Photographs) Above, languishing felines in the Cat Castle. (Courtesy photo) On the right, the ranch house, home to small dogs and the Cat Castle. (Image by Real Life Photographs)
“People always comment on how quiet it is here.” communal cat rooms, and also” — for finicky felines who prefer their own company — “cats who have their own kennels. They get rotated out during the day. We open their door for a period of time, so they can come and go.” Dogs receive the same compassionate treatment at Second Chance: they are given good-sized runs where they can go in and out at their leisure, and a chance to participate in play groups in a grassy meadow surrounded by a deer fence. Each dog receives two walks per day. The result is not a cacophonous collection of frantic barks and yowls, but a place of peace. “People always comment on how quiet it is here,” Goodin said. “It’s because the dogs” (and for that matter, the cats) “are not stressed out. They get their exercise during the day, so at night, they can sleep.” There is a point to all this caring, and it is not simply to “pamper” abandoned pets. Part of the reason is to retrain
human visitors to Second Chance. “People have an image of animals shelters as institutionalized jails,” Goodin said. “If your perception is that these are unhappy places, you don’t want to go in them.” More to the point, “We’re keeping pets as calm as possible so they don’t get sick,” she added. Studies have shown that the less stressed an animal is, the healthier it will be, Goodin pointed out. “And the healthier they are, the quicker we can get them adopted.” BURGEONING SPACE, EXPANSIVE MISSION No question, the animals that make it to Second Chance are lucky — it is one of this region’s most beloved nonprofits. The fact that “We’re in an area of the world where people really connect to pets makes it an excellent spot to push the boundaries of sheltering,” Goodin said. And the nonprofit is taking full
advantage: Over the past few years, it has gone from renting a 1,200-squarefoot-building alongside Highway 62 “to purchasing a 52-acre ranch, building a new dog facility, opening an onsite medical clinic and expanding programming.” The organization was greatly helped in 2016 by a generous bequest, which allowed it to pay off its 20-year mortgage on Angel Ridge Ranch. It has also allowed the nonprofit to expand its thrift stores in Ridgway and Telluride, and its local educational programming. Technically, Second Chance serves Montrose, Ouray and San Miguel counties. But its reach is broader: the humane society accepts dogs that have been found abandoned on the Reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, for example, as well as those that have been retrieved from unscrupulous “puppy mill” breeders. Call it compassionate networking: “We reach out to other rescue groups when we have >>>
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the space,” says Second Chance employee Brian Martinez. “And they reach out to us.” Compassionate networking, and canny: Second Chance reaches out not only through the animals it shelters for adoption, but through the exceedingly-well-stocked thrift shops it runs in downtown Ridgway and Telluride. The business has burgeoned so much in recent months that the shelter has added an extra building for storage at Angel Ridge Ranch. As a pleased Yelp.com reviewer put it, “One surprise after another, if the thrift shop force is with you, until you realize that folks recycling their clothing in a mountain town are going to be (giving away) Patagonia, Smartwool, Ibex and ExOfficio (gear) and the like.” At the same time, Goodin is monetizing the goods the stores offer. “You have to move a lot of product” to help fund all the work Second Chance is doing, she said. What other thrift store offers brand-new beanies bearing the Second Chance logo
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from hipster label Jyte (pronounced Yootay)? Goodin admired the wool hats, and reached out to the company. “She’s been great to work with,” she said of its owner. “She sends us free cat toys and cat beds made out of scrap material. All we have to do is ask.” Naturally, Goodin does. The thrift stores are known for replenishing their shelves so quickly with fresh, seasonal merchandise that you are almost always bound to uncover some new, ultra-low-priced prize each time you swing by. (To maximize profits, Second Chance stores seasonal items and waits for the best time of year to sell them.) The Yelp reviewer again: “The store is staffed with friendly volunteers, giving their time to keep the (space) organized, bright and friendly. And the money goes to the Humane Society, how good is that?!” Indeed, you don’t even have to appreciate animals to contribute to Second Chance. All you have to like is a good
deal. “It’s about whatever motivates and inspires people,” Goodin said. “There are a lot of different ways people can give. We want people to know their money is being used wisely. Seventy-three percent of our operating costs are supported by sales at our expanding thrift stores.” This summer, the nonprofit will introduce a new way to honor the bonds between pets and their people. In June, a Memorial Garden will open on the grounds of Angel Ridge Ranch. “It will be a place to grieve the loss of a pet, and a sanctuary area,” Goodin said. “People who aren’t super connected to animals don’t always understand the level of grief that can come with losing a pet. It can be profound.” Pet lovers who are “super connected” likely know the poem “The Rainbow Bridge,” and the concept behind it: that one day, owners and pets will be reunited. “Just this side of heaven lies the Rainbow Bridge,” the poem begins.
“We’ve always had big goals. We just didn’t have the resources to do it.” When a beloved pet dies, it goes to the Rainbow Bridge. It makes friends with other animals and frolics over rolling hills and peaceful lush meadows of green. They are as healthy and playful as we remember them in days gone by. Together, the animals chase and play, but the day comes when a pet will suddenly stop and look into the distance…bright eyes intent, eager body quivering. Suddenly recognizing you, your pet bounds quickly across the green fields and into your embrace. You celebrate in joyous reunion. You will never again separate. Happy tears and kisses are warm and plentiful, your hands caress the face you missed. You look into the loving eyes of your pet and know that you never really parted. You realize that though out of sight, your love had been remembered. You cross the Rainbow Bridge together.
To a non-animal-lover, this poem is merely pretty. To those who have lost their best friend — and most owners do outlive their pets — it is a summons from home. There is a pond on the nonprofit’s property, with a bridge leading to a small island. On June 10, at the grand opening of the Memorial Garden, “there will be a little ceremony” at the bridge, Goodin said. “We’ll be reading the Rainbow Bridge poem.” A set of “angel’s wings” by Ouray metalworker Jeff Skoloda will be placed on the island side of the bridge, befitting a sanctuary with “Angel” in its name, and the theme of “Rainbow Bridge” — the ultimate surcease for pets who “give us so much more than we do them,” as Goodin put it. “I’m a pet owner who has lost a couple,” Skoloda said. “I definitely understand the need for a contemplative space.” Also this summer on the grounds of the property, Second Chance will begin to offer equine therapy in a small circular
arena. “The arena was all ready to go. The people who owned the property before had horses,” Goodin said. “All we had to do was put a gate on it.” “We’ve always had big goals,” she added. “We just didn’t have the resources to do it. Our new programs and facilities and educational outreach all emphasize the ‘preventive’ aspect of our mission, the human-animal bond. We’re super-passionate about all this. These programs are endless in terms of what they can do; there are endless ways to prevent pet overpopulation. The more people are connected to animals, the less need there will be for us to shelter them. We hope to work ourselves out of a job. We hope there will be no need for a shelter.” To learn more about the Second Chance Humane Society and its many programs, or to make a donation, visit adoptmountainpets.org. To see Jeff Skoloda’s metalwork, go to skolstudio.com.
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Opposite page, the new riding arena and the medial clinic. (Image by Real Life Photographs) Above, this way to the dog den. (Photo by Eric Ming) Right, a view of the Sneffels Range, as seen from Smitty’s. (Image by Real Life Photographs)
A Guide to Navajo Rugs 30
B Y TA N YA I S H I K AWA
S
ince the beginning of time, Navajo elders teach, winter has been the time for storytelling. During the cold season, when many creatures are in hibernation, stories of the origin and traditions of the Navajo people are shared as a way for the young to learn not only history but ethics and values. A little more than 100 miles northeast of the lands of the Navajo Nation, in a narrow, 400-square-foot space near the east end of Telluride’s main street, stories
Exploring one man’s “addiction” to the fine art of weaving of Navajo art, culture and commerce are shared every season of the year. To enter the doors of the Fine Navajo Weaving
Gallery at 220 East Colorado Avenue is to take a journey back into history, through the orange canyons and deserts as well as the high, pinoñ and juniper-filled hills and mesas of the Diné (Navajo people). The gallery displays Telluride resident Bill Gordon’s 400-plus Navajo weavings, collected over five decades. Some date as far back as the late 1800s. All but a handful of his favorite rugs and wall hangings are for sale, for prices ranging from $350 to $20,000 (not a big range, he says, when he’s seen other rugs sell for $120,000 and even up to a million dollars). While not all >>>
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Navajo women weaving at the Hubbell Trading Post, the first trading post on the Navajo Reservation. (Photo by Terry Eller) Above, a Two Grey Hills rug, c. 1930, from the collection of the Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Craig Smith)
of the weavings come with a story specifically about their origin or weaver, each one evokes a rich tale about the history and quality of the design and materials. “Some people like to create many stories about Navajo rugs. From my perspective, it’s a commercial art,” Gordon says with determined pragmatism, dismissing romantic notions about the rugs holding native spirituality. “You’re not buying an Indian by buying a rug. You’re buying a product from a weaver — someone who has put their heart and soul into it, but produced it to sell.”
Originally woven by Navajo women (and still mostly made by women) as clothing for the whole family, white traders in the early 1900s saw the opportunity to create a market for the weavings as rugs in American homes. Different designs were developed around each trading post, and named after each area, such as Chinle, Ganado and Two Grey Hills, in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Bill describes the addition of borders on rug designs as a change made to address European American interior design preferences, which led to the
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The Hubbell Trading Post’s facade. (Courtesy photo)
Inside Gordon’s store and (middle photo) a discreet sign outside overlooking the shop. (Photos by Eric Ming)
“You’re not buying an Indian by buying a rug. You’re buying a product from a weaver — someone who has put their heart and soul into it, but produced it to sell.”
development of the “spirit line.” Esoterically defined by many as a way to let the spirit of the weaver out of their creations, Bill explains the lines as a way for the weavers to pull a string to the rug’s edge to let the formerly free flowing designs escape from being trapped by the new, dark borders. He is a natural and practiced historian and storyteller, who studied American Indian education and started his career as a teacher. A New York native who was attracted to the “red rock country” during his travels, upon college graduation, Bill
and his young bride, Ginny, moved to the Navajo Nation at Rough Rock, Arizona. There, they taught for two years at the first school in the United States to be run by Native Americans and a school board made up of tribal members. “The remoteness of the country, stuck up along the north edge of Black Mesa, 17 miles from the nearest paved road and the traditional influence of the people, 80 percent of whom didn’t speak a word of English, was a life-changing experience, which has led to an obsessive fascination with Navajo art and history,” he writes in
his description of the gallery’s founding. In 1973, the Gordons moved to Telluride, where they constructed a building near the commercial center of town and ran a Southwestern Indian Arts business. In the ’80s, when interest in Native American arts and local tourism declined, he went into construction and she went into property management. Pursuing these new careers, they kept busy while their rug collection continued to grow. Changing careers again, they opened the Society Conoco station, and along with their son, Jason, started Telluride >>>
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Transitional Chief-Style Blanket, 1880-1890, Heard Museum Collection. (Photo by Craig Smith)
Bottle Works in Telluride and The Liquor Store in Montrose. Meanwhile, Bill collected more rugs, storing and selling them from his home. In September 2016, part of the collection made an appearance at the Telluride Fiber Festival. Finally, after years of having rugs piled eye high in their living room, Ginny convinced him that the rugs would be better displayed and sold from a commercial space. Thus, the gallery opened in February 2017. Though Bill appreciates, buys and sells Native American jewelry and baskets as well, he admits that “rugs are my passion.”
He also appreciates other styles of weaving from other cultures, but says, “I find Navajo weaving especially fascinating as an expression of local American Art. The warp strings are the life force of humankind and the decorative wefts are the embellishments we add to our lives.” His unusually poetic interpretation of his rug obsession is reminiscent of Navajo origin stories, such as the one he retells of Spider Woman, who taught the people how to weave. She had Spider Man tell the people how to build a loom, with cross poles made of sky and earth cords, the
warp sticks of sun rays, and the heddles of rock crystal and sheet lightening. The batten was a sun halo; white shell made the comb. There were four spindles: one a stick of zigzag lightning with a whorl of jet, one a stick of flash lightning with a whorl of turquoise, a third a stick of sheet lightning with a whorl of abalone, and a rain streamer (the fourth) with a whorl of white shell. Bill now spends the majority of his days in his happy place, surrounded by his collection and enjoying great conversations with his customers and employees, Susan Dougherty of Ridgway and Oak Smith of >>>
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Bill Gordon in his shop. (Photo by Eric Ming)
Ginny Gordon, with a selection of Navajo weavings and her mini-Aussie, in the Gordons’ home. (Photo by Eric Ming)
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Norwood. “They are both so interested in the art form (of weaving). I’m pressing my grey matter to keep up with their questions,” says Bill, who pulls old trading catalogs off the shelf to find some of the answers. Gallery visitors often share stories of rugs passed down through their families and their experiences with Native American artists. Bill imparts his deep knowledge of the roots and evolution of Navajo weaving and the coinciding trade. And when asked about it, he and Ginny offer captivating glimpses into their two
“The warp strings are the life force of humankind and the decorative wefts are the embellishments we add to our lives.” years living with the Navajo, almost a half century ago. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week, from Memorial
Day to October, as well as by appointment. Though some have recommended Bill also sell the weavings through the internet, he doesn’t think it would be a good fit. “It’s a tactile art. The pleasure you get from seeing a Toadlena rug up close and really noticing the details would not be the same” if you just looked at it through a photo, he said. “I want to see if I can build this business by reputation, from people coming in and experiencing what I have here, and then telling others.”
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Storm Pattern Rug, 1915-1925, Heard Museum Collection, gift of Caron Ann and Harvey Mackay. (Photo by Craig Smith)
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A 3,500-square-foot house that lives and feels much bigger, and is surrounded outside by even more space, including wetlands.
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Modest Space, Mondo Views
>>>
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The front side of this rebuilt Mountain Village home faces the golf course. Architect Luke Trujillo of TruLinea added a 75-foot-tall window to help infuse the formerly-dark house with light and a sensation of spaciousness.
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A Mountain Village Home Makes the Most of Its Architectural Footprint
>>>
BY LESLIE VREELAND PHOTOS BY WHIT RICHARDSON
L
uke Trujillo, the owner of TruLinea Architects in Telluride, likes to say, “The most important project is yours.” What he didn’t realize when he took on a project on Arizona Drive was that it would become partly his, as well. Trujillo was more than an architect on this job. He was a visionary; he was a teammate; he was even a co-interior designer, along with co-owner Wendi Gittler. Wendi and her husband, Alax, “liked the idea that they could save some money and remodel a house on a good lot,” Trujillo said. They chose a property in Mountain Village with open space on three sides and tremendous views. “It had a beautiful south-facing patio area,” Trujillo recalled. The patio itself wasn’t there at the time; for that matter, neither was pretty much
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Above, a view of local conifers from the back porch and (below) the main room, with a zinc feature wall — an unusual design element — intended to “pop out” to create visual interest.
“We decided to keep the footprint small, and add two porches, so you don’t get a claustrophic feeling.” anything else you see when you look at the house today. With the help of builders Jamey Schuler and Ken Watt at Telluride’s Trifecta Construction, “We pretty much gutted the place down to the studs,” Trujillo said. “The wiring was new and the framing was new, but we were able to save the rooflines, and the foundation was already in place. Just having the mass of the foundations and the rooflines in place, that’s probably 50 percent of your costs right there. Doing a remodel is harder” than building a home from scratch “because you have to demolish and then go forward. But if you’re patient, it’s a really good, cost-conscious way to reinvent a home.” What emerged from the rebuild was a design born of necessity — to make the most of the home’s small footprint >>>
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Above, commodious couches for lounging on the front porch and (below) an interior stairway with an open feeling, just like the rest of the house.
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Above, light enters the bathroom not just from mirrors and clever light treatments, but huge windows; below, the living and dining area encourage big views, even though the home’s footprint isn’t large.
— and desire — to take advantage of its spectacular setting. Unlike so many other sprawling Mountain Village properties, “It’s not a 10,000-square-foot-house,” Trujillo noted. “It’s a 3,500-square-foot house. The thing that helped differentiate this design was adding new patios and porches and decks, which made smaller spaces seem larger by giving them their own exterior spaces.” He also installed a huge, 19-foot-tall, 27-foot-wide glass window wall on the home’s front side, and all-new interior lighting. “We wanted a lot of indirect lighting at night to give it a glow, so it felt comfortable,” he explained. Although beautiful and compelling, the window wall created a potential problem. “There was a concern about a lot of light spilling from that front glass window at night,” and out into the rest of the neighborhood, Trujillo said. The architect got around this by adding a light “cove” at the top of the window that shines light up and across the ceiling (as opposed to directly through the big window). “There’s also a shade system the Gittlers can drop at night” for more privacy, Trujillo said. Beneath the cove, a series of recessed can lights “shine down on the TV room, but not out.” Professional consultancy firm AE Design, in Denver, assisted with lighting. “We applied the same technical rigor to the lighting that we did to the rest of the house,” Trujillo said. “My undergraduate program at C.U. Boulder (in architecture) was with the principal of that office.” A sleek, new internal staircase helps sustain the “airy” feeling indoors, and keeps the focus outside. Trujillo didn’t fight the master bedroom’s design: “We decided to keep the footprint small, and add two porches, so you don’t get a claustrophic feeling.” He added a skylight in the bathroom for the same reason. “We’re trying to make this thing breathe a little,” he said of the home’s interior. “Before, it was very dark and enclosed, which is counterintutive to being in the mountains.” The Gittlers spend part of their year in Florida; Trujillo, who grew up in Colorado, is an avid outdoorsman. He knows mountains in general and the San Juans in particular, so when Wendi wondered if he would be willing to collaborate on the interior design, he said yes. As it turned out, his sensibilities dovetailed naturally with hers. “She asked, ‘Can we do this, just the two of us? I said, ‘I think we can.’ We
“The scale’s not too big, and it’s comfortable. It’s not so serious that kids can’t run around and have a good time.” collaborated and she picked everything out, right down to the doorknobs. I flew down to Miami; it was helpful for me to see what her tastes were in person. From there, we used screen-share software to select everything. Her tastes are modern. We kind of blended that with the Telluride vernacular, which has its own flair.” Wendi’s preference for cool gray tones suited this home and its many new windows: “You want to see the white and the green and the gold outside,” Trujillo said, and not be distracted by other colors within. The design is generous in its focus on the outdoors — everywhere you look, there is light — and in another way, too: Trujillo added windows in unexpected places, where nobody but the Gittler’s children, and their kids’ friends, would even see them. In the children’s rooms, above the beds, there are lofts with windows that overlook the living room — to allow the kids a chance to spy on the adults in the living room below (why should adults have all the fun?) Other touches — a Victoria + Albert tub and a shower of Carrera marble and inlaid stone in the master bathroom — were “little pieces of jewelry, bits of sparkle,” as Trujillo describes them (why should kids have all the fun?). “The scale’s not too big, and it’s comfortable. It’s not so serious that kids can’t run around and have a good time,” Trujillo summed up of the design. His so-called 430 Music Man house, in downtown Telluride, won two awards — the Audience Choice Team Prize and an individual award for Trujillo himself “for the same outstanding project” in the 2016 iteration of Telluride’s Art + Architecture Weekend. The home on Arizona Street will be in the A+A lineup this year. Trujillo summed up his firm’s design philosophy this way back then: TruLinea “constantly pushes details, space and light in all our homes.” While that may be true, his work in Mountain Village was much more a meeting-of-the-minds than one firm’s vision. “The energy and collaborative effort with Wendi showed up” in the results, Trujillo said. “That doesn’t always happen for architects,” he added a little wistfully. “It’s always client-driven, and some clients can be a little heavy. We were just trying to make this home more beautiful and useful. In the end, I go away — they have to live here.”
Above, two porches add a sense of spaciousness to a small bedroom; middle photo, just up the ladder lies a slot window where kids can “spy” on adults in the living room and (below) children’s beds (which include trundle beds stored below) mimic the cozy feeling of sleeping on a train, and maximize tight space.
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Cohousing Comes to Ridgway
It Takes a Village
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n a sweaty-hot morning in early May, a small band of friends gather with rakes, shovels, garbage bags and weed- whackers on the vacant lot in downtown Ridgway that they plan to develop into Ridgway’s first cohousing community over the next few years. It’s time to do a little spring cleanup on the land. There is a feeling of collective giddiness in the air, as if they are a bunch of schoolkids suddenly sprung from class for community service day. Geoff Tischbein, a retired Division of Wildlife public information officer, prowls the perimeter of the property, giving the weeds a haircut. Nearby, Mick and Kathy Graff, in matching sunhats and work gloves, are on litter patrol. They relocated from Cincinnati to Ouray County in 2001 after Mick retired from a 34-year career as a patent attorney with Procter & Gamble. Today they
The Alpenglow Cohousing community will be located on 4.5 acres of vacant land right in the heart of downtown Ridgway. The parcel used to be a railroad yard for the Rio Grande Southern until it was decommissioned in the 1950s, and has been dormant ever since. (Photo by Samantha Tisdel Wright)
live near Black Lake, a scenic rural area between Ridgway and Ouray. “We’ve been there 18 years, and we’re ready to downsize,” says Kathy, who has a Masters of Divinity from Cornell University, over the buzz of Tischbein’s weedeater. “We love our house. But we are going to love this too. And the people.” Over by Highway 62, as traffic rumbles by, Sally Swartz is sitting on the ground beneath a large sign that says “Future
Home of Alpenglow Cohousing”, stuffing stray twigs and dead leaves into a black plastic garbage bag. Sally and her husband Don, a dentist, “are ready to scale down too,” she says. Their 10-acre spread up on Log Hill Mesa is getting to be more than they can manage. The Swartzes were first exposed to the idea of cohousing when their son, an architect, was in grad school and had an assignment to design a cohousing neighborhood. At the time they never imagined they’d become so deeply involved in creating a cohousing community of their own. “We are excited about how this has evolved,” Sally smiles. “You get to be this age, and if you don’t risk something, what have you missed in life? You know, should we just sit at home eating Fruit Loops, and live and die?” She stuffs another handful of dead leaves into the garbage bag as if to say: “I don’t think so.”
Members of Alpenglow Cohousing gathered with their architects at the project site in early May. From left: Kate Kellogg, Kit Meckel, Geoff Tischbein, Don Swartz, Mick Groff, John Baskfield, Kathy Graff, Sally Swartz. (Photo by Samantha Tisdel Wright)
BY SAMANTHA TISDEL WRIGHT
DECIDEDLY UN-HIPPIE-ISH “It’s not a hippie commune.” That’s the first thing the founding members of Alpenglow Cohousing (there are 10 of them in all) will tell you when they describe the intentional neighborhood they are working to develop on this 4.5-acre parcel of vacant land in the heart of downtown Ridgway. These folks are many things — fit, adventurous, well traveled, well educated, and infused with a passion for politics, culture, the great outdoors, the Broncos, and the craft beer at the Colorado Boy Brewery. They are, in fact, your classic mature Ridgway-ites, deeply vested in their community — and decidedly un-hippie-ish. They got to know each other at the United Church of the San Juans, a progressive church in Ridgway. One morning after Sunday services in the winter of 2016, while standing around drinking coffee, they got to talking about their various living situations. Some had been widowed, or divorced, and were seeking a new way to live that helped them feel more connected. Others had built large dream-homes in remote parts of the county, and knew it would soon be time to simplify and downsize. Most were retired or semiretired. None could bear the thought of having to move away from Ridgway as they grew older. So they came up with a plan to buy some land in the heart of the town they loved, and build a multigenerational neighborhood there, comprised of homes that would be privately owned, connected by shared amenities such as a common house (think “community living room”) and a common vision for collective living. They wrote their vision statement down. It goes like this:
WHAT IS COHOUSING?
C
ohousing is an intentional community of private homes clustered around shared space. Each attached or single family home has traditional amenities, including a private kitchen. Shared spaces typically feature a common house, which may include a large kitchen and din-
We are creating an intentional neighborhood where we will live simply, care for one another, and share resources. We will focus on peacefulness and kindness as we reside in small, beautiful, environmentally friendly homes that surround our common house. Then they drafted a “living document” outlining how they would work together to make it happen — a simple list of interpersonal agreements that would guide their interactions going forward, such as a commitment to nonviolent communication and decision-making by consensus. They christened their idea Alpenglow Cohousing. AN IDEA AS OLD AS HUMANITY They had their concept, and they had a name for their concept, but they didn’t have a clue yet about how to go about achieving it. So they did a lot of reading,
ing area, laundry, and recreational spaces. Shared outdoor space may include parking, walkways, open space, and gardens. Neighbors also share resources like tools and lawnmowers. Households have independent incomes and private lives, but neighbors collaboratively plan and manage community activities and shared spaces.
and started visiting established cohousing communities around Colorado to see how they work. (The closest, Heartwood, is just a few hours away near Durango.) They also reached out to Katie McCamant, the woman who literally wrote the book on cohousing. In fact, McCamant has coauthored two books on the subject along with her husband, Charles Durrett: Creating Cohousing, Building Sustainable Communities (New Society Publishers, 2011) and Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves (Ten Speed Press, 1994). Together, McCamant and Durrett have designed and developed over 50 cohousing communities in the United States and consulted on many more around the world. McCamant accepted Alpenglow’s invitation to come to Ridgway for five days in early 2017. Cohousing, she explained at the public presentation she gave at the Sherbino Theater, is nothing new. >>>
The legal structure is typically an HOA, Condominium Association, or Housing Cooperative. Community activities feature regularly scheduled shared meals, meetings, and workdays. Neighbors gather for parties, games, movies, or other events. Cohousing makes it easy to form clubs, organize child and elder care, and carpool.
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Below: The common house at Heartwood Cohousing near Durango. (Courtesy photo)
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Its roots can be found in traditional rural villages around the world. Modern cohousing communities are intentional, collaborative neighborhoods that combine extensive common facilities with private homes to create strong and successful housing developments. McCamant and her husband may have been first to coin the term “cohousing” after discovering the model while traveling in Europe in the 1980s. They came back to the U.S. to pioneer one of this country’s first cohousing communities in California in the late 1980s, and helped jumpstart the first wave of cohousing developments that spread across the U.S. shortly thereafter. Most of these communities are organized as townhouse or condominium developments with a homeowners association; a few are organized as cooperatives. Cohousing is not a financial or legal model, but rather a descriptive term that shows the intent of these developments to cultivate a strong sense of community through extensive common facilities and active collaboration between its residents. Proponents say cohousing can foster cooperation and a sense of belonging, use resources more efficiently and make everything from gardening to childcare to
socializing simpler and more enjoyable. “The intention is for communities to come together and share resources rather than pulling into your garage and closing the doors and never knowing your neighbors,” says Shawn Mulligan, who lives at Stone Curves in Tucson, a community that recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Cohousing is definitely enjoying a new moment in the United States, with hundreds of new intentional communities springing up across the country, joining many others that are already mature and well established. Ten new cohousing projects, including Alpenglow, are currently in the works just in Colorado. “The community aspect is attractive to most of us,” says Tischbein. “We are wanting to be together. As a species most of us have the desire to help other people and there are times some of us will need help. This will provide an instantaneous community so we can help each other, and get help when we need it. There’s that sense of being there for each other.”
As they started their journey toward cohousing, the Alpenglow founders embraced the philosophy that form follows function. “The function is to create
a community of people that nourish and care for one another,” Tischbein explained. “Now we are working on the form.” The form, in turn, started with the land: 4.5 acres right in the heart of downtown Ridgway, between Cimarron Books & Coffee and the Adobe Inn. The parcel used to be a railroad yard for the Rio Grande Southern until it was decommissioned in the 1950s, and has been dormant ever since. It’s a rambling, gently sloping rectangular lot, bracketed by Highway 62/Sherman Street on its north end and by Cottonwood Creek to the south, and bisected along its entire length by the historic abandoned railroad grade, with glimpses of the Cimarrons and gorgeous up-valley views of Mt. Abram and White House Peak. The property is within walking or cycling distance of just about everything that everyone adores about Ridgway: the Uncompahgre Riverway Trail, Hartwell Park and Rollans Park; the public schools and library; the playing fields at Solar Ranch; and, of course, Ridgway’s legendary eateries, breweries, shops and coffee joints. As an added bonus, Mountain Medical Center, Proximity Space (a top-notch coworking facility with high-speed internet) and the Second Chance Thrift Store are right across the street.
and her husband traveled in southeast Asia and Latin America for five years as a young couple, and realized they wanted to live in a village-like atmosphere when they came home to start a family — someplace compact and multigenerational, where the kids were safe and it was hard to tell whose kids were whose. Where people were at ease with each other, trusted one another, and were surrounded by natural beauty. They explored a lot of small towns when they returned to the U.S. and didn’t find
anyplace that clicked. Then they came across the cohousing concept and found that it fit really well with what they were seeking. So, like the founders of Alpenglow, they rolled up their sleeves with a group of like-minded people and charged ahead to turn their vision into a reality. They worked for three years to find land they could develop. Eventually, they found it: 361 acres of meadow, pine forest, and pasture near Bayfield, Colo. about 15 minutes from Durango. “The county process was a huge obstacle,” Thomson said. “They say they like cluster developments, but in reality, their regulations are not set up for it, so we were a square peg in a round hole. We are fairly rural, and they are not used to having houses close together in a rural setting.” It took time to get the variances they needed. Then they met with opposition from their prospective neighbors in
LAY OF THE LAND
COMMUNITY PROFILE: HEARTWOOD COHOUSING
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few mountain passes to the south of Ridgway, Heartwood Cohousing has been ticking away for 20 years now, and offers a glimpse into a thriving, well-established cohousing community. Heartwood is a 24-home rural community near Durango made up of people of all ages and from all walks of life. Some members have been there since the beginning, and others have recently arrived. They take care of their own water, sewer, roads and trash. In addition to their beautiful common house, they have shared gardens, several greenhouses, a workshop, a meditation yurt, a tennis court, a hot tub, and more. The interior spaces of the community are connected by pedestrian pathways, and residents enjoy meals together three times a week. Heartwood founder Sandy Thomson
They are, in fact, your classic mature Ridgway-ites, deeply vested in their community — and decidedly un-hippie-ish. AN IDEAL FIT Together, the Alpenglow founders pooled together $1.2 million to buy the parcel, and then approached the local architecture firm Conterra Workshop with their cohousing vision. They explained that they wanted a tight sense of community, and that they loved the idea of a central Ridgway location within walking distance of everything. Conterra architects John Baskfield and Kit Meckel eagerly accepted the assignment to design Ridgway’s first cohousing community. “From an architectural standpoint, it’s a really special project,” Baskfield said. “As architects, we always ask ourselves, how can we be citizens who make the community better through design? Cohousing, by its very nature, strives to do that. We felt really lucky to be chosen for this project.” The design process thus far has been both rewarding and challenging. “It’s a strange piece of land,” Meckel said. “It’s long and skinny. The town grid doesn’t currently come into it. And it has a lot going on — wetlands, Cottonwood Creek, Highway 62/ Sherman Street, as well as County Road 23 in the back.” Multiple projects have tried unsuccessfully to do something with the property
over the years. But Meckel and Baskfield think the cohousing project just might be the perfect fit. “The ideas they are trying to pull off are ideas we are trying to pull off all the time — energy efficiency, sustainability, putting the land to its highest and best use,” Baskfield said. “It’s a way to really get some density into Ridgway, through a development where community is the big idea.” Current design plans call for Alpenglow to have 24 units at full buildout. They will be on the smaller side, ranging from 900 square feet to 1500 square feet. (Cohousing developments generally eschew large, lavish, private dwellings as a way of encouraging community members to use the common house more frequently.) The homes, designed as duplexes, will have high ceilings, big windows, and lofts in the upstairs for the larger units, to enhance the feeling of spaciousness even though they are, by intent, fairly compact and close together. In the cohousing design world, there is actually a formula for determining how close together houses should be. “They say that you want to be somewhere between 20-40 feet from your neighbors, and that’s when you start to create connections,” Meckel explained. “Whereas if the homes are like 75 feet apart (which is
more typical of traditional suburban subdivisions) you are less likely to talk to your neighbors and develop relationships.” WALK THIS WAY The design of the Alpenglow community has also been driven by the owners’ desire to be pedestrian-oriented, which has meant relegating parking and garages to either end of the development. The residential units and common house will be placed toward the core of the property, connected by a central plaza and promenade that follows the path of the old railroad grade. “There will be a bollard system at the south and north ends of the property where the parking areas are,” Meckel said. “At that point residents and visitors will have to park and walk in, or drop people off at the common house. It gives a level of access, but it’s not a typical street development with a street and alley.” “If we were doing it as a traditional development it would be more challenging,” Baskfield added. “But because the parcel is long and narrow, it works well to put the parking on the outside on either end of the core development. If we had to put in multiple driveways, we would be spending so much of the land on hardscaping and >>>
conservative Bayfield. “They didn’t have any idea what this cohousing thing was, and assumed it was a commune,” Thomson recalled. But, she added, 20 years later, “They love us now.” When Heartwood’s founders got their development built and finally moved into their homes, they thought the hard part was over. “But we were just starting,” Thomson said. “We realized, now we gotta learn to live together.” They did this in a very intentional way, supported by their community’s interpersonal agreements, which provide a blueprint for conflict resolution and decision-making. These agreements include commitments from each member of the community “to communicate with integrity, to listen with my heart, to own my feelings, to honor each person’s process, to be aware of conflict, to resolve conflicts constructively,” and more.
It’s been a great place for the Thomsons to raise their family. “My kids, everywhere they go, they get compliments,” Thomson said. “They really know how to talk to adults, I think because they grew up in an environment where that was expected of them.” Remarkably, half of the people who were at Heartwood in the beginning are still living there. “We have had a good core group of people here the entire time. There has not been as much turnover as you would think,” Thomson said. And for herself, as an introvert, “It works really well for me,” Thomson said. “I can go to a party at the common house for an hour and my husband can stay for the night. It’s very spontaneous, and easy to have social interactions if you want them and easy to avoid if you don’t. Everyone respects each other.” Thomson’s nuts-and-bolts advice for the Alpenglow founders as they embark
on their own cohousing adventure? “I would say, porches are a really important part of the design,” Thomson said. “We all have really nice front porches that are covered. Everyone knows that if you are sitting on your front porch you are open for visitors. That happens a lot; someone sits out on their porch and before you know it there are two or three folks on the porch and then someone runs in to get a bottle of wine...” Also, Thomson adds, “It’s important to clarify your community’s vision and values, and interpersonal agreements from the beginning, so when conflicts do come up you can refer to those agreements. It’s really intense to develop a community with a bunch of other people, especially when money is involved. If you can come up with shared values and shared interpersonal agreements, it will go a long way toward creating a climate where you can create a successful community.”
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The site plan for Alpenglow Cohousing calls for 12 duplexes arranged around a central common house, linked by a pedestrian promenade and plaza.
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access that it would be hard to fit in more than a handful of houses.” Landscaping and gardens in the common areas, designed by Rob Breeden of NVision Design Studio in Fruita, will play a big part in enhancing the feeling of connectedness within the community. “The play between public and private is tricky,” Meckel said. “The vision is to create private pockets of space behind the houses, while the front of the houses are designed to have visual interaction with the central common area. The kitchens all have a sink that looks out into the plaza. There will always will be that visual connection on the front side, and you can filter back and retire toward the back of the house if you want more privacy.” HOUSE OF COMMONS The common house is perhaps the most important design element of the entire Alpenglow project. Once built, it will be the focal point, the gathering place, the collective heartbeat of the neighborhood, and it must encourage
HOW TO GET INVOLVED IN ALPENGLOW COHOUSING
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ant to learn more about Alpenglow Cohousing? The first step of engagement is to connect with one of Alpenglow’s members as a “buddy.” You can come to meetings, get to know other members and join in community gatherings.
intentional interaction — the secret sauce of any thriving cohousing community. Baskfield and Meckel did a ton of research, and worked closely with the Alpenglow project owners, to achieve this effect in their common house design. At its core will be a large, versatile great room with views up-valley toward Mt. Abram and White House peak. This area will be used for dining (most cohousing communities have group dinners several times a week), and will also have a fireplace and cozy lounge area. There will be a large wraparound porch to the south and east, and a community kitchen with a large island, a prep area, and a peninsula where residents can sit and chat with folks who are working in the kitchen. Beyond the great room, the common house will include a small den, a media room with a TV and stereo (“So we can yell at the Bronco’s together,” Tischbein laughed), a mailroom, an entry/mudroom area, and other flexible spaces that can be used for exercise, meetings, crafts or meditation. “The idea is to make people feel com-
Ready to explore further? After you have attended some meetings and it feels right to become more involved, you can become an Explorer. Explorers come to regular meetings, join up with a committee and make small monthly financial contributions towards an “organizational fee.” If you decide to move forward, your contributions will eventually go towards reserving your spot in line for a home.
fortable, kick off their shoes and stay a while,” Meckel said. “We are going to try to keep those spaces very versatile, so that whatever the community needs to do they have a space at the common house to do it.” The common house will also incorporate a guest suite that anyone in the community can reserve, with a bedroom and an attached bath. “It allows a lot of people who may not feel comfortable buying a small unit to still have a guest room for company,” Baskfield said. WON’T YOU BE OUR NEIGHBOR? They have the property, they have the design, and they have the core group of founders. Now, Alpenglow Cohousing needs more members. “The rule of thumb is once you have got 70 percent of the total number of households for a cohousing community, you can start construction and that will generate interest to attract more members,” Tischbein said. That means that, ideally, 18 of the 24
When you are ready to be a member and reserve a home, you make an investment in the project and secure your place in line for home selection. Once you have made this commitment, you are considered an Alpenglow Cohousing Member with full rights and privileges. Learn more at: alpenglowcohousing.org.
“We are looking for people that have open minds, have an idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” planned Alpenglow units must be reserved before the project can launch into fullscale development. (Currently six units are spoken for.) “We are looking for people that have open minds, have an idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” Tischbein said. “We want to be inclusive.” The Alpenglow folks are working to get the word out to prospective new members through multiple channels, from the hyper-local to the national. They have ads on Colorado Public Radio and in national cohousing magazines. They’ll have booths at the Ridgway Farmer’s Market and Summer Concert Series. They’re on Facebook. And they’re building relationships with local realtors. In a community like Ridgway, in the throes of a new real estate boom and with rising property values and construction costs, affordability has also been a challenge. “We were hoping to be able to build 950-square-foot homes for $250,000,” Tischbein said. “We are trying to cut the
The main pathway of Nevada City Cohousing, Nevada City, Calif. (Courtesy photo)
costs down. But with construction costs rising in the area, it is now going to be $300,000 for a 900-square-foot house and over $400,000 for a 1,200 square-foot house,” which is in line with what similar properties are going for in Ridgway and the surrounding area. Because they are self-developing, “We are not making a profit,” Tischbein stressed. “These are the costs of the actual building.” And for that amount of money,
he added, “members are buying more than just a house. They are also buying use of the whole property. And the use of the common house.” While the core group of owners are all of retirement age, they don’t see Alpenglow as purely a retirement community. Indeed, they hope that as their community coalesces, it will become more multigenerational, with a diverse array of community members in all stages of life — one reason they are working so hard to make the homes affordable. So, there are still some things that need to come together to transform Alpenglow Cohousing from a dream to a reality. In the meantime, Baskfield said, “We applaud the courage of this group of regular citizens to step up and say, ‘We are going to try to do this thing that is really a hard thing to do, take the risk, risk our own savings, volunteer countless hours and make this thing work.’ That has been inspiring, to see these folks who are not developers have the courage and tenacity to do that.”
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BY LESLIE VREELAND PHOTOS BY GERRY EFINGER
In a ‘razor’s edge’ market, a cadre of designers and builders gets it right
‘The Value of Teamwork’
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hat do second-home buyers want these days? In particular, what are those who are drawn to Telluride and Mountain Village looking for? It’s not as easy an answer as you might think. As a result of the Great Recession, “America reset the bar with regards to real estate and all kinds of other financial decisions,” LuxWest Real Estate broker Bruce MacIntire said. “Between 2009-2015, a six-year period, there were very few homebuyers here, by Telluride’s standards. During that time, the kinds of buildings that were being constructed” — “legacy” homes intended to house multiple generations of family members — “got replaced by a younger buyer not looking for a sprawling family compound but a space to house their young family. These are people who want a 4-bedroom home for their family and their guests. But nobody was building these homes. It’s still a market that isn’t being served very well.” “It isn’t a broad market,” MacIntire went on. “Mountain Village is a razor’s edge of a market. >>> So you want to be able to say, ‘Who are these people, and what do they want?’”
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“Because the same team built all three houses, we were able to speak clearly with one another, trust each other and understand one another.” He’s part of a team that has been remarkably successful in figuring that out. The group has constructed two houses so far, and is about to complete a third on a cul-de-sac called Trail’s Edge Lane in Mountain Village. Though their facades are different, the homes share a similar philosophy when it comes to design: clean lines, the use of natural materials and neutral tones that reflect the surrounding landscape, and gaping views of neighboring iconic peaks via master decks and patios outdoors, and through tall windows from the inside. The homes enjoy easy access to shopping and downtown Telluride — the grocery store and the gondola are just across the street — and to skiing, via a deeded-access trail at the end of the development’s private, heated street. Elk Lake is a short stroll away. MacIntire credits the team’s cohesiveness for its success in making these homes not only aesthetically pleasing but a reasonable value (the proof is in the results:
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buyers snapped up the first two properties as soon as they were completed). In addition to MacIntire, the creators include developer BCW Properties; builder ProSET Construction; Wesson Architects; and LuxWest Interiors. The developer is based in Philadelphia, and the rest of the group is in Telluride. “There was a value in teamwork,” MacIntire said. “Because the same team built all three houses, we were able to speak clearly with one another, trust each other and understand one another. And that played out in these homes’ design.” As soon as BCW Properties purchased the first lot, “the architect, the contractor, the realtor and the interior designer were all on board,” MacIntire said, “and decisions were being made that kept costs in check. The interior designer could say, for example, ‘If that space was 6 inches wider in that bedroom, we could put a bed right there.’ An out-of-town developer wouldn’t necessarily know how to control >>>
Opposite page: a long, light-filled hallway and in the kitchen, a Wolf stove, Sub-Zero refrigerator and a natural quartzite countertop. All the wood floors in the home are of rift-sawn white oak.
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MacIntire credits the team’s cohesiveness for its success in making these homes not only aesthetically pleasing but a reasonable value. costs other than to say, ‘We’re not going to spend this much money on this.’ But a local contractor can keep a running tally on costs. And I’m the Realtor; I was right there. I could say, ‘If what we do takes us over X amount of money, I’m going to have trouble” finding a buyer. MacIntire called himself “The scaredy cat at the end of the rope — the guy responsible for selling it. We were always pushing to keep costs down and still get the best product we could get.” It helped that MacIntire happened to be living with the interior designer — his wife, Barbara MacIntire (she’s LuxWest Interiors). “We talk all the time,” he said. When you are in a relationship with your partner, “You have a conversation all the time no matter what,” he said. “We get up in the morning and start talking business and because we really enjoy it, it’s not a burden; it’s a pleasure. We have the privilege of being able to take our work home.” As the second house was going up, a
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number of people were keeping an eye on it, including a young couple with children who owned a condominium across the street. “They used to drop in and ask questions,” MacIntire recalled. “They watched it being built.” A spec home is designed to appeal “to the broadest group possible. It’s not like a home you would customize for yourself,” MacIntire said. Nonetheless, so appealingly pitch-perfect was the home’s design, inside and out, that the family purchased it — fully furnished — for $3.6 million as soon as it was completed. “I think they’re really happy there,” MacIntire said. “They come for short stays and extended stays, in both winter and summer.” In that respect, they are no different from the MacIntires — or the many other families who purchased property in the box canyon. “We all did what they did,” MacIntire said. “We all came to this valley and fell desperately in love with it. And, over the years, owning a home here has turned out to be a pretty good investment.”
Touch one of the frosted-glass double doors leading to the master bath (opposite) and both glide open simultaneously. Iridescent handmade glass towers line the shower; the countertop is of man-made quartz.
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Spruce House, in downtown Telluride. (Photo courtesy of FUSE architecture + interior)
Affordable
A New,
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Aesthetic
B Y K AT I E K L I N G S P O R N
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Spruce House maximizes space, views and good looks
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A peek at Ajax Peak from Spruce House resident Kathleen Cole’s porch. (Photo by Eric Ming)
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ubmitting an affordable housing project to an artand-architecture event in a town as tony as Telluride may seem like a foolish idea. “Affordable housing,” after all, is not historically synonymous with high style. In fact, the term tends to evoke images of cramped, generic quarters with little light and even less attention to aesthetics rather than anything resembling a dream home. But that’s precisely what Trevor Hall and Peter Lundeen of FUSE architecture + interior did last summer — they
included their new Spruce House project in Telluride’s Art + Architecture Weekend, a festival devoted to cutting-edge home design paired with art and food. And at the end of the weekend, the coveted $3,000 Audience Choice Award went not to a high-end renovation or bespoke second home, but to Spruce House, which offers long-term housing in the heart of town to eight local households. It was proof that affordable housing can be both functional and fabulous, and marked a deeply gratifying moment for the design team. “The community has responded really
well to it; they felt that it fits with what a building in Telluride should be. And people who have been living there have really enjoyed it,” Hall says. “Both of those things have meant a great deal to us. That’s really what motivates us more than anything else — people’s reactions.” Not that Spruce House came easy. When FUSE won the bid from the Town of Telluride to design the town-subsidized project, they were presented with a number of daunting challenges. How to maximize space in eight units on a tiny footprint shoehorned into the heart of downtown, all while making them
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The view down Pacific Avenue. (Photo by Eric Ming)
appealing to live in by providing views and outside spaces, meeting the town’s rigorous building standards and fitting it all into an affordable budget? Oh yes, and there was also the matter of incorporating covered parking and a commercial space into the layout. It was, Hall says, “like a Rubik’s cube … you sort of noodle around with it until it all falls into place.” And that’s what they did as they began the project in 2015, setting out on a painstaking process of maximization and efficiency. This included carefully planning out the units to create multi-use
“I feel that the dream can come true for people in this town.” spaces, like open kitchen/living rooms; minimizing hallways; carving out as many windows as possible; tucking appliances into small nooks and utilizing materials that look great but cost little, such as recycled stone quartz countertops and vinyl tile flooring, which resembles wood but is even more durable.
“Wherever there was a square inch that could be used, it was,” Hall says. And that was just the interior; the team had a completely different challenge when it came to the outside of the building: how to design the exterior so it didn’t seem as if a hulking cube was dominating the corner of Spruce and Pacific? They designed their way out of that problem by breaking up the building’s silhouette, stepping back the top floor in a tiered fashion, incorporating decks and using a variety of building materials. The result is a condominium building that fuses elements of minimalist modern >>>
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Sleek, compact kitchen, dining space, and a comfy couch to relax on. What more do you need in downtown Telluride? (Photo by Eric Ming)
design with the town’s rustic character. The exterior incorporates rusted steel, durable impregnated wood and steel plating; decks circling the building offer views of the valley in each direction. The interior features clean lines and color palates of grey and blonde. Some units have vaulted ceilings. All told, Spruce House includes two one-bedroom units, five two-bedrooms and one three-bedroom. These deedrestricted dwellings range in size from 527- to 1,153-square-feet, with price tags ranging from $136,500 to $345,000. What’s more, Lundeen notes proudly, the project “came in on budget and in
time … both of which were very tight.” For residents — who began moving in in January of 2017 — Spruce House was the realization of a seemingly impossible dream. Kathleen Cole has lived in Telluride since 2002, and like many young denizens, spent her 20s bouncing around various rentals. Being able to live here alone was something she was grateful for. But Cole, who works at the Ah Haa School and does wedding planning, never thought she’d actually be able to afford to buy a place — let alone one she loved — in town.
“It was a pipe dream,” she said. “I definitely never thought I was going to own anything in Telluride. But I was saving money in the hopes that someday something would happen.” Eventually, she started house hunting. After a Wilkin Court unit fell through in 2016 — a huge disappointment — she decided to apply for a condo in Spruce House. Though she tried not to get her hopes up, she couldn’t help but fall in love with a third-floor unit during the tour. It had vaulted ceilings, big views across the valley and an unbelievable deck — all within walking distance of work, friends
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Bar stools allow guests to watch meal prep, perhaps while enjoying aperitifs. Below, clever outdoor gear storage maximizes space. (Photos by Eric Ming)
and events. She wanted it so badly that she scrawled her name and the name of her dog on the drywall. When the town lottery came around in late 2016 for units in Spruce House, she refused to attend. The thought made her too nervous, so she opted for a hike with her dog instead. But when she checked her phone, it was loaded with messages; out of 52 qualified households, her number had been drawn first. She’d won the lottery. The prize was her dream apartment. Today, Cole says she is well aware of how lucky she is, and she makes a point of shar-
ing the love by having people over all the time for dinner parties and holiday gatherings. She allows friends to use her unit as a base during festivals. While she thought she was okay with renting forever, she’s realized that owning has been more satisfying than she ever could have guessed. “When you get to own something, you really get to make it ‘you.’ I love it,” she says. Telluride’s housing crunch is often criticized, and some view it as an intractable problem. Cole has a different perspective: “I feel that the dream can come true for people in this town.”
BY A R I L E VAU X
Lubing the Leaves 70
Salads that satisfy without irritating the leaves
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f you scan the tables of America’s favorite eateries, from foodie to fast casual, you’ll witness many variations of a certain salad. A base of leaves, piled high with chicken, shrimp, cheese and croutons, as well as other foods that may or may not be raw, and may or may not be vegetables. One gets the feeling these over-garnished deli platters are aimed less at “real” salad eaters and more at people who have been told by their families, friends and doctors to eat salad. If one isn’t so into raw veggies, this kind of salad allows one to eat salad by dipping a crouton into ranch dressing. While it may seem like cheating, there is actually historical precedent for such decadent interpretations of salad. “Larousse Gastronomique” by Prosper Montagne, an authoritative encyclopedia of classic gastronomy published in 1938, defines salad as a dish “...made up of herbs, plants, vegetables, eggs, meat and fish.” You’d think Montagne wrote his book in a booth at IHOP. But there is an important caveat to his apparent condoning of busy salads. A good salad, Montagne writes, “freshens without enfeebling and fortifies without irritating.” If all I ate were croutons and cheese, I’d feel more enfeebled and irritated. But if freshened and fortified are how you want your body to feel, definitely consider raw vegetables. We all ask different things of our salads. My wife is completely satisfied with raw leaves, in part because she is the salad whisperer and has the ability to make perfect salads with laser-leveled flavors. When it is time to make a salad, she thoughtfully analyzes the raw materials, and creates a game plan for an awesome salad, including a custom dressing. She uses a lot of olive oil to get there, but the amount of leaves she can eat would need units of cubic feet to describe. Me, I respect the leaves more than I love them. And with some delicious lube to make the leaves go down, I’m a happy salad eater. For me, salad is not so
much something that is made of raw vegetables, but a method of eating them. With their fibers and vitamins, raw plant parts are the best things you can eat. I’m just going to come out and say it: The problem is, they don’t fill you up. A good-sized salad will still leave your belly wanting more, unless the veggies are eclipsed by empty calories, or unless followed by a serving of lasagna. If you eat enough leaves, of course, you will eventually get full. But the trick is to stay focused on the raw plant parts, and not the extra goodies that have been added to sweeten the deal. The way to do this, I have found, is to make a dressing that is extra decadent, and omit the other bells and whistles. For today’s first recipe I borrow the dressing she uses when she’s eating alone and too lazy to make a salad. At such times, she eats heads of straight radicchio, head after head, dipping the wedges or peeledoff leaves into a three-way mix of olive oil, soy sauce and vinegar. Radicchio disappears this way, as she dips it in dressing like chips in a bowl of salsa, and crunches them down. (If you wish to try something like this at home, keep olive oil on hand as you will have to replenish it; the oil floats on top, so it’s quickly depleted.) In my recipe for Saucy Salad, I split her dressing up into parts, to be combined later. The vinegar part of the dressing goes onto the leaves, while the oil and soy sauce are added later with bits of meat and other chunks. In the Greasy Lettuce Boats recipe that follows, vinegar is omitted entirely. As my wife says, “salt can replace vinegar, but vinegar cannot replace salt.” SAUCY (MEATY BRUSSELS-Y SPROUT-Y) SALAD One softball-sized head of radicchio, sliced thin as if by deli machine. (Think coleslaw, but thinner.) Roughly the same amount of homegrown romaine lettuce, similarly cut (or use mostly romaine, if radicchio is too bitter for you) A medium-sized sweet or yellow onion, sliced in half and then into thin arcs Two cloves garlic: pressed, grated or pounded Sliced cucumber, to taste Half-pound lean ground red meat (or alternative meat or protein)
Twelve Brussels sprouts, trimmed and sliced lengthwise (or other vegetable like asparagus) Olive oil (1/2 cup), soy sauce (1/4 cup) cider vinegar (2 Tablespoons) Toss the radicchio and romaine with the vinegar, cucumber, half the macerated garlic and half the sliced onions, and set in the fridge. Pour the olive oil into a pan, and heat the meat, breaking it up into pieces with a spatula. Add the Brussels sprouts to the pan, cut sides down, and the rest of the onions on top. Cook slowly with the lid on, allowing the onions to give their moisture as the meat browns but doesn’t burn, and the Brussels sprouts soften. When the water is running low, add the soy sauce and the rest of the garlic, and stir. What you have, at this point, is a lusty sauce that could be poured over noodles or some other empty carb. If the veggies sucked up too much oil, add more to the pan, so the dressing is as greasy as it is meaty and salty. Let it cool for at least ten minutes, then spoon it onto your salad. GREASY LETTUCE BOATS Another way to use that same chunky sauce on some leaves is to spoon small amounts of it into roll-ups of homegrown baby romaine or other small lettuce heads (you can also use dandelion, chicory or radicchio leaves, available year round). This is a particularly easy way to get kids to eat leaves, and can be busied up as much as the audience can handle. Deconstruct the leaves, separating and filling them with greasy sauce and goodies. I begin with a dab of mayo (when I say mayo, I mean Grapeseed Oil Vegenaise, available at grocers in Telluride, Ridgway, Ouray and Montrose or online at follow yourheart.com). Shreds of cabbage can be added to these boats as well, or pickle, for a splash of acid. Or not, because vinegar is expendable, because my little salty wife says so. But oil and sodium in this equation: completely non-negotiable. And for what it’s worth (a lot, I would argue), the salad listener approves of these recipes.
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