PEAKS AND PLAYGROUNDS

ONE FAMILY MAKES A COULD-BE VACATION HOME IN WYOMING'S SKI COUNTRY THEIR ONE AND ONLY

- KRISSA ROSSBUND

A few weeks here, a few weeks there. That's how folks use a house that's situated in a vacation destination. Case in point: Jackson, Wyoming, a town that in the winter lures skiers to descend the surrounding slopes among majestic views of the Teton range.

When one Virginia couple set their eyes on the mountain town, they wanted to make their vision clear to the design team of Rush Jenkins and Klaus Baer and to architect Logan Leachman. They planned to leave their Virginia home entirely and relocate to Jackson, full time. That meant the house needed to be livable for their needs all year and wasn't solely a ski-in, ski-out situation.

"There's a different approach that we take when a home won't be used just for vacationing," Jenkins says. "They are an active family with kids and dogs. But even though they live there full time, their kids are almost grown. This house needed to make sense for visitors who are coming and going and give the homeowners a cozy and intimate setting when it is just the two of them."

The best way to know how someone lives is to live with them, and both the designers and architect did just that. After spending a few days observing how the family lived, the team was able to craft a property that not only spoke to what they were told, but also what they witnessed.

"Staying with the family allowed us to see the insights and slight nuances that we wouldn't get otherwise," Baer says. "When you are invited to someone's home, you get an idea of hospitality and how they host. That's important to this client. If you can understand the story of someone's life and their heirlooms, you can design a space that will touch their hearts."