Huge space presents huge challenges
Designer makes over home in Telluride, Colo. with ‘modern mountain’ treatment
For Michelle Wiebe, overseeing the design of large-scale, luxury homes is akin to launching a Broadway show, a process in which artistic, financial, and technical considerations are carefully balanced.
“The producer has to understand everything from the dancers to the lighting. In our case, we have to handle everything from the position of the cooktop to the views to the finishes to the faucets,” says the designer, whose involvement typically begins when the client approves about 80 per cent of the floor plan.
“We go from blueprint all the way to hanging the last piece of art on the wall,” she explains.
The residential projects Wiebe oversees average between 8,000 and 10,000 square feet., although she recently designed a 38,000 square-foot home for a professional baseball player that includes a bowling alley and movie theatre.
As with a Broadway venture, the financial stakes are high.
“In multimillion-dollar homes, everything has to flow seamlessly. Otherwise there can be some very costly errors — six-figure errors,” says Wiebe, who is based in Tampa, Fla., and works on projects across the U.S.
In directing the renovation of a 5,500 square-foot home in Telluride, Colo. — famous for its breathtaking mountain scenery, celebrity residents, and an international film festival — Wiebe knew the vista had to take centre stage.
“So many houses in Telluride are shaded by the mountains and get no light. Here there was so much sun and such beautiful views,” she says.
Interior decor celebrates the magnificent landscape. Other than motorized blinds in a few rooms, there are, for example, no window treatments.
The homeowners wanted a space that wasn’t too “rustic.” There was a “no antlers” directive, and the client wanted to avoid darker tones, eschewing, for example, the once-popular espresso-brown hardwood flooring.
Instead, Wiebe created a look she calls “modern mountain,” centred on organic shades and subtle textures.
“We tried to pull out the colours of the mountains,” she says. “We did a lot of metal and distressed woods, with calm neutrals — taupe, grey, cocoa brown — accented with some warmer oranges and velvety greens.”
The home wasn’t without its challenges. At 9.5 feet, ceilings on the first and second floor were lower than the 15-foot heights Wiebe typically works with.
In the living room, that meant finding overhead fixtures that worked with the scale, while providing sufficient ambient light. To achieve that goal, the team installed cove lighting on exposed beams, and added round, ceiling-hugging fixtures ornamented with twiglike shapes.
There were technical considerations for fitting a television above the wood-burning fireplace, an increasingly rare fixture in Telluride, where they are severely restricted. Here the existing structure was allowed to stay under a grandfathering clause. Faced with travertine, it became a sleek, sculptural focal point.
A cathedral ceiling on a third-floor bedroom meant height wasn’t a problem. But the room posed another challenge: two walls were windows and built-ins lined another wall. Where, then, to put the bed?
It was one of those instances that reminded Wiebe of how interconnected elements are in a large-scale design, and how “nothing is ever completely easy or straightforward.”
To solve this particular puzzle, Wiebe designed a floating bed in the middle of the room with nightstands built into the headboard. Behind that sits a built-in dresser.
Despite the high-risk headaches, Wiebe embraces the challenges inherent in big-space design.
“I’ve been in business 25 years, and in the past eight to 10 really involved in new construction or major remodelling, which means taking it back to the studs and almost starting over. But I love it. I love not having to work with decisions other people might have made. I enjoy being on construction sites and meeting with the sub trades. It’s so exciting to take raw product and turn it into a beautiful, finished home.” Follow Vicky Sanderson on Twitter @vickysanderson, on Facebook at facebook.com/vickysandersonTO and on Instagram @vickysandersontoronto