Kirsten Molz always thought of himself as a beach person more than a mountain person. But when her family rented a house in Park City, Utah, at the beginning of the pandemic, she reconsidered.
“I always wanted an ocean house,” Molz, 51, said an interior designer who calls Pasadena, California. That desire changed when she and her husband escaped Park City in June 2020 with two of her children, three family friends and three dogs.
“It was so beautiful here,” Molz said. “I sat outside, just on the path of half of the mountain, seeing the hikers and I had this feeling in my heart that I could live here.”
When she told her husband: “He called an agent in five minutes,” said Ms. Molz. They dreamed of building a house that could serve as a holiday house for now and perhaps a retirement house in the future, as well as a place where their adult children, Emma, 28, Charlie, 26 and Ollie, 20, would like to visit regularly.
After seeing some development lots, the couple settled on a property of the eight acres mountain with a meadow surrounded by Alamo, which bought for $ 2.5 million that September.
By imagining an elegant and modernist house instead of a rustic style -style house Lode, Molz said he wanted a residence that resembled the structure of the nature represented in the 2014 film “Ex Machina”.
Looking for architects online, he discovered the Sparano & Mooney architecture. “When I saw his website, I thought: ‘These guys could really do that,” Molz said.
He found a partner arranged at Anne Mooney, director of the firm. “We were really excited because it was a beautiful place and it was going to be a home forever,” said Mooney.
During the following months, Mrs. Mooney and her team visited the lot several times, contemplating where to place the house in the landscape to take advantage of its natural beauty. “We were thinking about the experience of the site and this idea of bathing in forests,” he said, describing the practice of decelerating and experiencing nature with all the senses.
As a result, the company embedded the ground floor of the 8,200 square feet house on the hillside and separated the rooms from the upper floor to open them to the landscape.
“The house takes a step forward with the site and some of the key areas are connected by bridges”, which function as sunny halls, said Mrs. Mooney. “The bridges are made of glass and you have the Álamos trees on both sides of you while walking through them, so you feel that you are part of that forest experience.”
Specifically, a glass bridge links the main vital space with the main suite; Another connects the entrance hall to the bathroom and the garage. The architects covered the rest of the exterior in the pine lining, which was thermally modified to increase its durability.
Inside, Ms. Molz chose white oak floors and cabinets, and gauze plaster in a creamy white color for many of the walls and ceilings. “I wanted him to feel warm so that when he is here in winter and is cold outside, I will not miss California,” he said.
He also took the opportunity to build a customs house to acquire special pieces that he had admired for a long time, including a mate black lacchech for the kitchen and paper tapestry painted by Griffin and Wong who represent birds and flourishing trees for the library. He also installed a custom pool table of the furniture manufacturer based in Los Angeles, Cooper Reynolds Gross, in the library, which comes with a white lid that allows him to double as a large -scale dining table to entertain.
“We don’t have a dedicated dining room,” Molz said, “but we can have Christmas dinner and thanksgiving there.”
For furniture, it mixed vintage modern pieces of mid-century with contemporary upholstered items to rest, including a large restoration hardware section and rotating chairs upholstered in Lawson-Fenning cloud fabric for the living room. He worked with the landscape architecture firm based in Pasadena EPT Design to design the hillside around the house, including stone steps from the main bedroom to the sauna.
After opening in June 2021, the development of highlands completed the construction in August 2023 at a cost of approximately $ 600 per square foot.
Now enjoying the finished project, Ms. Molz said she would not change anything if she had to do it again. “I can honestly say that he has exceeded our expectations, practically in every way,” he said, adding that it is a home that his children also love to return. “It is a perfect place for us all to congregate and spend time together.”
For weekly updates by email on residential real estate news, register here.
