BY ERIKA AYN FINCH; PHOTOGRAPHS BY DEBBIE WEINKAUFF Trends in home décor come and go just as quickly as they do in fashion – not all that long ago the location of your home dictated the interior design. A Wyland print was a must in any house near the coast and a New England home had to have at least one wooden mallard in place. In recent years, location “rules” have gone the way of plastic pink flamingos and popcorn ceilings – modern and contemporary homes are popping up all over the Southwest. Is it easy to go your own way in design? Meet local homeowners who chose to build a steel and concrete oasis in an area better known for rustic log cabins; an interior design team who helped a couple build a home that’s adobe on the outside and contemporary on the inside; and an artist who’s crafting steel furniture that would fit perfectly in the latest Las Vegas casino but instead is being snapped up by local home and business
The homeowners were fairly open to the suggestions of Stephanie and her team of Lynne Montedonico (Sedona Monthly’s style consultant) and Barbara Young, though they had several pieces of art and a few Oriental rugs they wanted to incorporate. Stephanie took the couple to John Brooks, a trade showroom in Scottsdale, where the process began with choosing the hard surfaces. Rather than sticking to traditional earth tones, the entire house is decorated in shades of plum, copper, black, and bronze. Stephanie found contemporary hardware and lighting at Home Elements in Sedona, but most of the pieces came from Scottsdale. Stephanie says locating contemporary and modern furnishings in the heart of the Southwest is not a problem. “It’s not difficult for me because I have resources in Scottsdale – hundreds of showrooms and design centers at my fingertips,” she says. “That’s why it’s always a good idea to use a local interior designer – we have resources that homeowners, or designers based in other parts of the country, might not.” For the Mystic Hills home, Don Woods used lots of glass to showcase up-close-and-personal red rock views. Stephanie also incorporated glass in the interior in the form of a glass tile backsplash in the kitchen and bar. Glass also enters into the equation in the washroom with a colorful glass washbasin and pedestal with a chiseled and sandblasted glass edge. Small one-inch by one-inch glass and travertine tiles make up the master shower. Stephanie also likes to incorporate exotic woods. The home’s flat panel front doors are carved from alder and open with fluid Helios bronze handles. A subtle strand of copper winds its way through the doors. The floors in the great room are also alder while the entertainment center, custom built by Sedona carpenter Caleb Burke, is made from macassar ebony from Africa. The ventilation grates are made from wood for a finished look while the incredibly modern table and chairs in the breakfast area – the tall, narrow-backed chairs have gold chenille seat covers and sit low to the ground, as does the round table – are made from ebonized ash.
Other contemporary elements include three moss rock fireplaces in the main house and one in the casita – the flecks of green add wonderful pops of color to the gray background. Sleek, 18-inch tall rectangular lights crafted from oil-rubbed bronze follow the curve of the wall up the stairwell and a round microsuede and linen light hangs above the breakfast table. In lieu of drapes, Stephanie used solar shades that recess into ceiling pockets when not in use. The home is outfitted with an elevator; gym; steam room; and Smart system that allows the homeowner to control air temperature, lighting, and music from any room in the house or even by computer while they are away. In part, Stephanie credits technology with the recent trend toward modernity. “We live in a technology-influenced age,” she says. “Everything is becoming more streamlined, even our homes.” With the recent completion of the home, how did the owners react the first time they walked into their contemporary castle with the stunning Southwest views? “They flipped,” says Stephanie. “They are big entertainers – there is combined indoor and outdoor seating for 21 – so they loved the bar and the media room. They were like kids in a candy store. When we’re working with someone who doesn’t have a clear idea of what they are looking for it allows us to create visions the homeowner didn’t know how to create. It’s a really exciting process.”
“We’ve always designed the interior of our homes,” says Carol, a retired advertising executive. “We’re definite about what we like and our taste is consistent. From the beginning, we were clear about what we wanted.” Larry, a retired doctor, agrees with Carol – something they do quite often (Carol admits it’s “uncanny”). “We want our homes to be about our taste and not someone else’s.” The home sits on 7.5 acres of beautiful pine forest with large windows framing mountain peaks and concrete terraces projecting out into the trees. Carol and Larry purchased the land in 2000 – the home was designed by Stephen Thompson, built by Kevin Baltzell, owner of Harmony Builders Inc., and supervised by Jeff Hall of Greenmountain Enterprises. Because the home has concrete floors and walls with no baseboards or doorframes, everything had to be extremely accurate and precise, says Larry. “The house was too streamlined to hide any flaws, which was why we had to have a good contractor and project manager. We were rarely on site – we trusted everyone and didn’t want to get in the way. We ran the entire project like a business – if you don’t trust your workers you’re not going to succeed.” Carol and Larry used berms and trees to camouflage the house from the street because, Carol says, they didn’t want to call attention to the front of the house or detract from the landscape. All the height sits toward the back of the home, which is where the great room with its 22-foot-tall ceiling is located. Interior walls are painted two shades of gray with a Chinese red accent wall and a charcoal ceiling (when the recessed lights are turned on the ceiling almost looks like a star-filled night sky). Steel stairs led to Larry’s study – the only room on the second floor – that cantilevers out into the living room. Avid travelers, the couple decorated the home with art from Mongolia, Africa, and Vietnam – a 33-foot-long painting from Vietnam hangs on a 40-foot-long wall in the living room; Carol and Larry checked the painting all the way home and then hired Sedona Framesmith and Art Gallery to come into the home, stretch the canvas, and build a frame. The process took three days. Carol and Larry designed much of the home’s furnishings, including the pale purple suede cloth sofa and chairs in the living room, but also purchased furniture in Arizona, including red office chairs from IKEA, which surround a rectangular glass dining table in lieu of traditional dining chairs. Duvets from Saigon and Africa adorn the beds while Albuquerque artists Enrico Embroli and Kathleen Kinkopf created several custom paintings, including Sleeping with Zebras, which hangs above the bed in the master bedroom (the room can be closed off from the rest of the house by a thick, frosted glass door). Antique Chinese chests finished in red and black lacquer are used for storage in Larry’s study – South African hats sit atop the chests. A steel bowl of wooden red tomatoes supply just about the only pop of color in a kitchen outfitted with commercial-grade Formica cabinets and a deep stainless steel sink. In the master bathroom, which includes a Japanese soak tub, an indoor shower, and a terrace with an outside shower (“Like the ones we used in Africa,” says Carol) surrounded by pines. A Japanese bamboo basket sits on the concrete counter – its mate can be found in a museum in Tokyo. Carol and Larry, who’ve lived in this area full-time since 1995, called upon Northern Arizona University professor Carl Clark to design the lighting for the home. “When designing a contemporary home lighting is very important,” says Larry. “It’s underrated – most people tend to think of lamps but we wanted a clean look without lamps on the floors or tables.” All the lighting is track or recessed into the ceiling and concentrated in areas where Carol and Larry might be reading, such as above the bed or chairs in Larry’s study. Television screens fold up into the ceiling while black solar screens rather than curtains provide shade from sunlight. Speaking of sunlight, how does a concrete home located in an area of the state that receives quite a bit of snow stay warm? Aside from three concrete and raw steel fireplaces, the house features in-floor heating and forced hot air. Carol admits this was one of her concerns but says the solar gain from the glass and concrete heats the floors in the winter so there hasn’t been a problem with temperature, though the couple does need to run the air conditioning in the afternoon during the summer. The house is a Smart House designed by Sedona’s AVDomotics Ltd. – heating, cooling, lighting, and entertainment all can be controlled on touch screens located in each room or via computer if Carol and Larry are away. Carol and Larry are clearly proud of their home, both inside and out. They say they wouldn’t do anything different and have “no regrets.” So what sort of advice would they offer a DIYer looking to build a modern home in the Southwest? Carol says to peruse magazines, shop while you travel, and head for contemporary stores in Phoenix and Scottsdale. The couple also did some shopping via the Internet. Larry admits he’s heard the horror stories from friends building custom homes and credits his own positive experience to four things: “We knew exactly what we wanted and we itemized everything,” he says. “We also had a terrific contractor, architect, and a project manager who gave us peace of mind – we could walk away and know things would be done right.” What did Carol and Larry’s friends and family, many of whom come to visit and stay in one of two guest rooms or the lower-level apartment, say when they walked into this modern mountain home? “It didn’t seem to come to mind that it was unusual for a mountain town,” says Carol, “until they saw the trees. But everyone who worked on it was so excited about their piece of the puzzle because they don’t have the opportunity to do something like this very often around here. At the end we had a big party for everyone.” •
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“Recently we’ve completed a fair amount of modern homes,” says Stephanie, who’s certified with the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). “Just because we live in the Southwest doesn’t mean you have to hang kokopelli on every wall. I think a lot of people are tired of that look. You also don’t have to be confined by southwestern décor simply because you have an adobe or stucco home.”
The home includes an extraordinary array of textures and surfaces, from the Venetian plaster in the bedroom and the limestone vessel bowls in the master bathroom to the stormy granite countertops in the kitchen and the peacock slate floors in the laundry room. Textures continue in the bedroom with a wheat-colored Pollock fringe loop duvet, dark blue accent pillows trimmed with beads, and a chiseled pickled oak and fabric woven headboard.
Carol and Larry [last name withheld to protect privacy] may be two of the most decisive homeowners on earth – when it came time to building their 6,500-sq.-ft. steel, concrete, and glass ultra-modern home in the mountains of northern Arizona, the couple approached their architect and builder with a four-inch binder of ideas and details. When the house was complete in 2003, 1-1/2 years after construction began, it was fully furnished and livable in two days; Carol and Larry designed the interior of the home and completed all of their shopping well before the home was finished, storing all their treasures in three storage units.
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