Channeling Hemingway: Tim Campbell

CHANNELING

HEMINGWAY For designer Tim Campbell, creating an overnight retreat for artists and creatives in Sun Valley’s restored Hemingway House afforded an unexpected opportunity to reflect on his own personal and professional journey.

a project by

TIM CAMPBELL

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KARYN MILLET

KETCHUM,

IDAHO

CHANNELING

HEMINGWAY For designer Tim Campbell, creating an overnight retreat for artists and creatives in Sun Valley’s restored Hemingway House afforded an unexpected opportunity to reflect on his own personal and professional journey.

a project by

TIM CAMPBELL

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KARYN MILLET

KETCHUM,

IDAHO

A view from Hemingway House toward Sun Valley.

Though the ghost of Ernest Hemingway looms large

time with Mariel and learning more about what she wanted

in Ketchum, Idaho, there’s nothing remotely haunted or

to achieve, he knew that being a part of the project and

haunting about the midcentury homestead where he spent

designing the apartment was something he was uniquely

his final years after leaving Cuba. Recently restored and

qualified to do. “In so many ways, the house is a testament

invigorated with purpose after decades of near dormancy,

to the power of transforming beauty and pain into healing

the estate—known as Hemingway House—is filled with

and creativity—and to what happens when you don’t do

fresh insights into Hemingway’s life and legacy in the

that since, obviously, this is the place where he died. So

American West.

it really dovetailed perfectly with my philosophy of beauty

and nature as a framework for design.”

It’s also the site of The Hemingway Initiative, an

innovative artist-in-residence program that hosts a rotating

band of visiting artists, educators, writers and thinkers

Bob Topping to resemble the nearby Sun Valley Lodge

from a range of disciplines in a newly minted apartment

(which, legend has it, he loved but had partied in one too

designed by Tim Campbell. It’s a fitting transformation.

many times to be asked back). It’s a sprawling, two-story

For Papa, as Hemingway was affectionately known, life

structure, bigger than it initially appears, and a stunning

was one big adventure, and his zealous commitment

example of midcentury architecture. But the real genius

to pursuing his craft was outpaced only by the demons

of the design is the way it connects the indoors with the

chasing him. How better to pay tribute to the iconic and

outdoor landscape beyond—from nearly every angle, the

complicated life of this 20th-century giant than to channel

peaks of the Pioneer and Smoky Mountains feel close

the creative drive that fueled him as a force for good—a

enough to touch. Hemingway bought it from Topping in

sentiment Tim tapped into for inspiration throughout

1959 and spent his final years there with his fourth wife,

his involvement in the project. “Ultimately, that’s what

Mary, hunting and fishing and, ultimately, becoming a

creativity is in many ways,” he says, “taking the things that

significant presence in the local community. When he

are unseen and then making them known.”

took his life there on July 2, 1961, the long line of mourners

from the area was a testament to his impact.

A native of West Virginia who decamped to New York

The house itself was built in 1953 by tin-plate heir

to launch his interior design career, Tim found his calling early and never looked back. “Some of us just end up with this thing we’re put here to do, and we discover it quickly,” he says. “I needed to create a sense of home and comfort

"TO ME, MOUNTAINS ARE A

that was missing in my life. On paper, sketching, I could

METAPHOR FOR STRENGTH

escape into a world that was different than the one I lived in, a place of intended beauty.”

AND HISTORY. THROUGH THE

Today, he splits time between the East and West

PROCESS OF THEIR FORMATION,

Coasts, where he also maintains a Los Angeles studio. But,

THE SUPERFLUOUS STUFF ALL

he says, he’s always open to the kind of detour of destiny that led him to Hemingway.

FALLS AWAY AND WHAT YOU’RE

“I was at a signing for my book, Intentional Beauty,

LEFT WITH IS EXPOSED AND

and Mariel Hemingway came,” he says. “She had seen

ENDURING."

a short documentary I made about the book, and the approach that I take, and she came to ask if I’d be a part of the work they were doing in Ketchum.” After spending

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Tim Campbell at Hemingway House.

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New and historical inspiration, including Urban Electric lights, inside the artist-in-residence apartment at Hemingway House.

T i m C a m p b e l l re f l e c t s o n h i s work in Hemingway House.

Mary passed away in 1986 and bequeathed the estate

to the Nature Conservancy to be used as a nature library and reference facility. Over the ensuing three decades, the house served many purposes for the organization, even functioning as its offices for a time. By 2014, however, Hemingway House was sitting empty for months on end

“IN SO MANY WAYS, THE HOUSE IS

and in desperate need of repairs that the Conservancy

A TESTAMENT TO THE POWER OF

was ill-equipped to undertake. Three years later, with the blessing of the Hemingway family, the Nature Conservancy

TRANSFORMING BEAUTY AND PAIN

transferred ownership to the Community Library, a

INTO HEALING AND CREATIVITY—

privately-funded local institution that had been founded

AND TO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN

in 1955 by a group of seventeen women, including Clara

YOU DON’T DO THAT.”

Spiegel and Anita Gray, two of Ernest’s closest friends in Idaho. Restoration soon commenced on the property and the Hemingway Legacy Initiative began taking shape.

“As part of the program,” Tim explains, “the Library

and the family decided to open up a portion of the house, this apartment, to artists from a lot of different backgrounds to come and make work that speaks to this place and the healing, cathartic energy of its landscape.

And that’s why I’m here.”

Of course, that approach to preservation extended to

To create a space that is universally inspiring for

keeping the connection between the indoor and outdoor

artistic-minded visitors requires a strong commitment to

spaces fluid, as well—something Tim intuited from his own

neutrality. “Color and materials become important, as does

experience growing up among the ridges of West Virginia.

putting those into historical context,” Tim says. He relied

“To me, mountains are a metaphor for strength and

on a soft palette of earth tones, along with materials that

history,” he says. “Through the process of their formation,

maximize comfort, such as cotton and linen textiles and

the superfluous stuff all falls away and what you’re left

cork floors that could be easily heated when temperatures

with is exposed and enduring.”

drop. The apartment was originally part of a garage, so

he preserved the exposed concrete walls and finishes—

Matthew Barney would no doubt agree, there is something

paint splatters and all. He replicated the pine cabinets

inherently powerful and refreshing about entering this

found throughout the rest of the house for continuity, and

kind of creative world, shaping and being shaped by the

added a beautiful yet subtle hunting-inspired wallpaper by

landscape and legacy of the location. Here in Ketchum,

Timorous Beasties, an English company, in two spots for

surrounded by Idaho’s celebrated natural beauty and

atmosphere. “Someone once told me that ‘background is

rich history, tomorrow is another day, another source of

foreground’ and that’s how I approached this project,” he

inspiration and another moment for another artist, upon

says, “so as not to distract from the creative energy that

whom the sun will also rise, to make his or her mark on

the inhabitants need."

the world.

As recent residents such as the contemporary artist

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FOLIE FLUSHMOUNT P O W D E R C O AT W H I T E F I N I S H INTERIORS BY TIM CAMPBELL P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y K A RY N M I L L E T

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