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Steamboat Magazine

Architecture & Design - Old Dairy Lane

02/24/2013 08:29PM ● By Grant Johnson

Home Builder: SFB Contractors
Architect:
Michael J.K. Olsen Architects
Photography: Michael Olsen

An opportunity to create distinctly modern design in Steamboat Springs is unusual, on account of both the climate and roofline restraints from many homeowners’ associations. This home’s design reworked the traditional mountain home vernacular into a hybrid-modernist style. The effect is cool and calm and cozy.

Keeping it “mountain,” the home maintains a gable roof, which is atypical of more contemporary design. But instead of imagining the roof as growing from the structure below, it was perceived as floating above it in order to distinguish individual elements in the building. A pallet of building materials was similarly selected to define the individual building elements. While cementatious stucco is the most prevalent exterior material, it also includes vertical wood, steel and stone. The interior blends steel, concrete, drywall and wood finishes. The roof is covered with a combination of asphalt shingles, metal and an impenetrable rubber membrane on flat surfaces.

The overall desire was for clean, strong, contemporary lines, and the owners were heavily involved in the design process. They even took on the interior décor themselves. The result is a particular visual interest stemming from a design that has many faces that seem to complement one another – leaving nothing feeling out of place.

View other homes featured in our premiere Architecture and Design edition:

Architecture & Design - Tanaka Ridge 

Architecture & Design - Under the Gondola 

Architecture & Design - Mountain Escape 

Architecture & Design - Hot Springs Road

Architecture & Design - On Soda Creek

Architecture & Design - Alpine Mountain Ranch