House where landscape comes first

For Chad Oppenheim, his home in Colorado is a childhood dream come true, writes

Oppenheim made his renovations with 300-year-old recycled barn wood and locally quarried stone cladding to keep with the goal of making it less imposing.

CHAD Oppenheim grew up in New Jersey. But the Christmas he was 15, his parents took him and his sister skiing in Colorado, and that was it — he was smitten. The first night was cold and clear, and as they walked the streets of Aspen, he gazed longingly at nearby Red Mountain, sparsely dotted with homes decorated with holiday lights.

“In the winter, the trees have no leaves, and you can see all the lights,” said Oppenheim, who is now 41 and an architect in Miami. “These amazing, incredible lights.”

One day, he promised himself, he would own a house there.

CHILDHOOD DREAMS

It took a while, but in 2008 he finally made good on his promise. The house he bought for US$3 million (RM12.6 million) was a 300-sq m structure built in 1971, sitting on 0.2ha of land with a stream running through it.

Although it is not unusual for homes here to be much larger — one nearby house, which sold for US$43 million in 2009, is upward of 1,950 sq m — Oppenheim’s goal in renovating his was not to make it more imposing. In fact, he said: “I wanted the house to disappear.”

Instead of trying to compete with the beauty of the natural landscape, Oppenheim created a house that recedes into it, with 300-year-old recycled barn wood, locally quarried stone cladding and enormous picture windows.

Even inside, he said, “I like invisible doors, fixtures, door openings and drains.” So the doors, which are unframed, disappear into the walls. Doorknobs are narrow bronze strips, known as “knifeedge pulls”, which disappear into the doors. Light switches are even more minimal, with tiny green and red pinpoints of light that indicate whether they are on or off, and bathroom drains are narrow slits edging the bottoms of the sinks.

The minimalist renovation, which cost US$2 million, was completed earlier this year, and Oppenheim and his wife, Ilona, a graphic designer who is now 35, and their children, Hendrix and Liloo, now 3 years old and 11 months respectively, moved into the four-bedroom house.

Although it is actually five storeys, it looks more like three. But most of the floors are split-levels, which creates a sense of intimacy, and some of the windows are as tall as 4m, offering views of the mountains, the stream, the garden and one particular bear who visits frequently for the nuts and berries that grow there.

LOW-KEY PARADISE

Like the architecture, the furnishings are intentionally low key. The palette is neutral: mostly gray, taupe, black and white — shades that don’t compete with the brilliant colours of the landscape.

In the summer, the sofas in the third-