Project designer Jeff Gerber’s challenge was fashioning the home’s intricate post-and-beam structure, fitting together the massive trestles (salvaged from Utah’s Great Salt Lake) with expanses of glass. During the process, a surprise storm dropped 400 inches of snow in Steamboat, filling the not-yet-roofed home.
Eventually, the snow was cleared, the roofs went on, and the house came together. Reclaimed barn siding covers some interior and exterior walls, and stacked stones root the house into the rocky landscape. The furniture is so low profile, you barely notice it. “My philosophy is to let the ingredients in the house be the decoration,” says Laurie. “In a setting like this, the house needs to be quiet, and the landscape becomes the real monument.” The Reeds even pulled the landscape up on to the house: Along the roofs, carpets of sedum plants replace, in part, the green space that was taken away during building.
That total embrace of the outdoors extends to the family’s way of life in Colorado. “We love our house, but we spend as much time outside as possible,” says Laurie. For now, the couple and sons Ben, 14, and Nat, 10, vacation in Steamboat throughout the year, skiing in winter and hiking, kayaking, or bicycling in summer and fall. “After every trip,” says Dave, “Laurie and I look at each other and say, ‘One of these days, we’re going to stay for good.’ ”
Design: Laurie Reed; Jeff Gerber, Gerber Berend Design Build, Steamboat Springs, CO; gbdesignbuild.com