Mountain Home

Within the valley that we live in, which is known as Jackson Hole, the Hole is actually a reference to the mountains we're surrounded by. My name is Eric Logan. I'm a partner with CLB Architects and this is the Lone Pine Residence. One of the things that we try to not take for granted is the beautiful landscape that we live in. We are surrounded by mountains and that's one of the unique things about this particular part of the world. As a result, we're constantly trying to open spaces to bring the views of those mountains in. The design guidelines prescribe that all the roofs in the subdivision major roof forms need to be gables and that all of those gable roofs need to have an overhang. We actually negotiated hard with the design review committee in this subdivision to allow for rather than an additive approach to the roof overhangs where one puts on a hat and stretches out a brim. We took these very simple agrarian forms and carved away at them and so you will see these deep recessed porches at the short ends of all these buildings allows for a nice indoor outdoor transition, create some covered outdoor space, essentially to achieve that overhang condition that was prescribed by the design guidelines. The diagram is very simple. It's composed of two pavilions. One contains what we'll call public functions, the living dining kitchen. The other all of the bedrooms, so very neat and tidy, compartmentalized. Those two pavilions are then linked by a connector which serves as the entry. It's actually the space we're in at the moment. Really the goal was to create a balance of these kind of warm wood elements contrasted with the kind of smooth abstract plaster surfaces. There's a richness that we find in that contrast. Then we get a little bit deeper into the materials palette and some of the details. There are all kinds of custom details developed particularly for this project. Our team brought an idea about leather accents into the conversation and sort of judiciously spread them out around the house as little moments where one touches and feels. As an example, the kind of woven quality of the leather strapping at the stair handrail. It's very beautiful and there's a kind of graphic element about it. But when one grabs the handrail and starts to traverse the steps to the second floor, there's actually a funny texture underneath the grab bar which is that baseball stitch which is there and it's meant to be disguised so it doesn't complicate things visually but there's a tactile thing that happens. Natural light in our environment is extremely important to how we think about livability in a home. Also and sort of selfishly from an architectural point of view, the way light moves across surfaces and enters rooms creates some drama and texture and interest. And so when we think about the articulation of the exterior of this building to begin with, the subtractive moves that we make create this wonderful kind of shadow play that changes throughout the day. And one of my favorite places is the kind of heroic covered porch at the end of the living space. There's a wonderful kind of indoor-outdoor connection there. For our s We deliberately put a hole in the roof plane to create some interest with light and shadow and so wherever we look in this house, whether it's out of the master bedroom directly toward the ski area for the ski report, whether it's out of the wonderful and expansive set of windows on the mountain side of the living pavilion, the mountains are present everywhere in this home. One of the things that this very simple diagram did for us, that is two pavilions with a connector, allowed us to create a kind of a crude H shape and plan. There's one side of the H, the approach side of the H, everyone enters through a kind of courtyard. There's a collecting moment there and a direction toward the front door. The other side of the H, there's this beautiful kind of private courtyard that's made. Our landscape architect, working with the owner and our team, designed a beautiful kind of boss of aspen trees. It's a bit of a notion of cultivated landscape in this otherwise wild context that we live within, so aspen's planted as if they're a little deliberate boss. There's a beautiful color element, the light and shadow and the sound that the leaves make when the wind blows. One of the unique things about the context that we're in Jackson is that this community places a high priority on access to wildlife and as a result there's conserved parcels of land surround us. Part of the conservation notion is to protect and also preserve habitat for wildlife and as a result even this neighborhood that we're in today is crowded with wildlife of all varieties. We're also adjacent to Spring Creek where there are fish and that's of course habitat that draws moose, elk, deer, fox, etc. From my standpoint, one of the greatest successes in this project is there's a wonderful feeling of kind of protection and so sitting there watching the light move through the daytime, one of my favorite things to do when I'm on property.