London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

A Mountainside Aerie Near Red Lodge, Montana

A Mountainside Aerie Near Red Lodge, Montana

This home integrates materials that speak to the surroundings, and nature takes center stage

A mountainside home that seems a perfect fit for its place may have a sense of inevitability about it now, but it was a long time in the making.

The homeowners had spent a decade vacationing in Jackson Hole before pursuing their own home. They then visited mountain towns all around the greater Yellowstone area, searching for the right property.



The entry highlights the conscious minimalism of landscape architect Charlie Kees of Field Studio, whose design defers to its alpine meadow environment. The custom door is reclaimed wide- plank white oak; custom hardware by Brandner Design.

They’d not considered Red Lodge until a friend waxed poetic about its attributes: great skiing, a vibrant town with good restaurants, proximity to Yellowstone and, best of all, an off-the-beaten-path vibe. But even after buying property, they didn’t start a project right away. They waited, and they acquired more land, until they had just the right configuration for building.

“The final piece we bought was key,” says the husband. “We built the house on that piece to face the rest of the property we’d bought earlier, then we nestled it back into the mountain to make it disappear.”



The kitchen marries book-matched marble and a custom light fixture with rustic materials.

The clients envisioned a clean mountain look with large expanses of glass warmed up by rustic materials. (By the time they designed the home, the wife laughs, “We’d had fifteen years to think about what we wanted.”)

They chose Pearson Design Group to conceptualize the house, OSM Construction to build it and Field Studio landscape architects to help integrate the structure into the landscape. The client’s Atlanta-based interior designer, Alice Cramer, visited Montana for the first time to help realize clean, livable interiors in a subdued palette enlivened by pops of color.



Built of regional stone and natural weathered wood, the home is very much of place and commands views up and down the valley.

What’s striking about the home, other than its siting-anchored into and embraced by the mountain, yet offering its residents an edge-of-the-precipice exhilaration-is its appropriateness. At 4,800 square feet, with a material palette of regional stone and natural weathered wood, it is human scaled and keeps its focus on the outdoors.



Designer Alice Cramer paired the custom dining table with West Elm chairs and Ochre lighting. Artwork by Montana photographer Stephen Shore.

“There’s an inherent challenge in building on a mountain and not skylining a project,” notes Pearson Design Group Principal Justin Tollefson. “The house wraps to the hillside, and, especially when viewed from downhill, it blends into the hillside and the topography with the rock outcroppings. The driver for us was to make it a dynamic modern piece of architecture while not forgetting its place.”



Minotti living room furniture lends a clean, neutral look and keeps the focus on the views.

The house aligns almost entirely on one level at an elevation of 6,500 feet and contours with the mountain. It’s defined by one long graceful line of a shed roof lifting up and out toward views of the Beartooth Mountains, with the cabin-like forms of the guest room and owners’ suite protruding in different directions from the main volume and a deck off the great room cantilevered into the view. Utility spaces and a bedroom are anchored into the hillside end of the house; the open kitchen, dining area and living space, unified by concrete floors and an open three-sided fireplace, embrace 180-degree views.



In the primary bedroom, a graphic Patterson, Flynn and Martin rug grounds the room. The light is from Arteriors, the bench from Robert James. A small patio barely protrudes into the landscape and is minimally furnished with Restoration Hardware chaises.

Multiple exterior spaces offer varied views and shelter depending on which way the wind is blowing, while intrusions into the land- scape are minimal. The main bedroom’s sandstone terrace, for instance, is just large enough for two chaises, while an outdoor room with a stone fireplace and reclaimed wood ceiling nestles into the hillside, hidden from view and protected from the elements. The landscape palette is designed to naturally blend into the native sage-brush and prairie grasses.



In the serene powder room, the concrete counter with integrated sink is illuminated by a pendant light from Palecek.

“We talk a lot about being indigenous to a region,” says Tollefson. “The [home’s] architecture and materiality are local, and while there are aspects that might look elegant, such as the double cantilevered roof and deck, we never forget craftsmanship. This house is grounded in the ruggedness of the materials: the strength of the steel and stone, the texture of the wood. These ingredients are enough.”



The outdoor dining area, tucked between the house and a wooded hillside, was conceived on a windy day, when the importance of shelter was obvious. The furniture is from Home Infatuation.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×