From the street, the house presents a layered, three-tier elevation. A pale concrete planter anchors the base, planted with native grasses and carrying the house number. Above it, the main level is clad in vertical timber boards with a soft grey weathering, broken by a single deep-set window framed in black. The upper floor pushes forward as a covered balcony, its dark vertical-slat balustrade casting a band of shadow across the facade. Broad concrete steps climb alongside the house, guided by a slender steel handrail, so that arrival becomes a gradual ascent.
The palette is deliberately limited to silvered timber, concrete, and blackened steel, and each material has a clear job. Nothing is decorative. Timber gives the gable its warmth and grain, and will age alongside the bark and rock around it. Concrete takes the ground, the stair, and the retaining edges where the site falls away. Steel, used for railings, posts, and window frames, draws thin dark lines that sharpen the outline against the mountainside. A low slatted screen at the base repeats the rhythm of the balcony above, tying the levels together.
The rear elevation is where the house turns fully to its setting. The land drops toward a creek edged with boulders and meadow grass, and the design follows it down to a generous covered porch. Here, a round stone-clad hot tub sits beside an outdoor living room, sheltered by the balcony overhead and carried on slim black posts. Full-height openings connect the porch directly to the living spaces inside, while an exterior stair along the side links the two levels without passing through the house.
On the upper floor, the gable becomes a vaulted ceiling, lifting the rooms into the roof and giving them the volume of a much larger home. Tall openings in the gable end frame the rocky ridgeline beyond, and a steel flue marks the fireplace that anchors the house through Telluride’s long winters. The result is a building of honest proportions and careful restraint: a familiar farmhouse form, reduced and refined, that lets the mountains do the talking.
