A modern home with a softer side invites year-round mountain life
By Katherine Nettles / photo by James Ray Spann
The Jones family home, located within the Hidden Mine Ranch subdivision, is a celebration of bold modern architecture blended with the natural elements around it. With large swaths of glass to capitalize on the surrounding views and black steel structural elements, the home uses extensive timber and stone both inside and out.
Inside, the home prioritizes comfort as it is the primary home for the owners, a couple who relocated to the valley from Colorado Springs when the home was completed in 2025. Local architect Andrew Hadley and his team designed the home, Wright Angle Construction was the contractor, Jonathan Augello was the project manager and Roxana Alvarez of RA Modern was the interior designer.
Hadley oriented the home on the elevated lot to maximize views to the front and enclose it on the sides within the forest.
“The house was designed to nestle into the north facing aspen grove at the base of Mt. Whetstone,” he says. This includes carrying the outdoor spaces into the treed setting, with extensive patios in the back and decks out front.
Large wooden modules are broken up with burnished steel connectors and allow glimpses of the hillside beyond, explains Hadley. “The verticality of the modules mimics the tall, slender profile of the aspens.”
The roof design was simplified to allow snow to shed in non-use areas, and Hadley says, “The individual modules rotate to take advantage of the views of the Elk Mountains to the north. Various exterior spaces were designed to accentuate the multitude of views.”
Hadley says the concept of using such extensive metal on the exterior was an important step not only for the home’s style, but also its durability. “We wanted to bring that into the design and the future is looking for new materials that are non-combustible that can be used in wildland-urban interfaces,” he says.
“We’re really inside an aspen grove,” says Alvarez of the home. “So many of the rooms feature the trees toward the back.” Windows frame the dense forest on three sides of the property, and the living room and wrap-around deck face Paradise Divide to the north.
Alvarez notes that the designers took care to create pockets of intimate-feeling spaces throughout the home to ground the larger spaces. The first of these is just past the entry on the first floor, with a sitting area and steel fireplace that hints at a much larger version on the second floor.
“They wanted to have a space that felt comfortable, and Andrew and Jonathan did a really nice job of capturing smaller spaces within the larger home,” says Alvarez. “So when you come in you don’t feel you’re in this enormous house even though it’s pretty big from the outside.”
The couple has four children who are young adults, and all live on the Front Range and come to stay as often as possible. The home is laid out to accommodate them (and their dogs) now as frequent visitors, and into the future as the family potentially grows.
“The actual livable spaces are not overwhelmingly large. They are comfortable, have a beautiful flow and feel cozy even though the house is fairly large,” says Alvarez.
On the first floor is a guest suite with a bedroom, full bathroom, powder room and “bonus” guest space with oversized bunks. The design team added wooden beams above doorways and touches of reclaimed wood throughout the home to add warmth. Additionally, bathroom tiles add a touch of playful floral patterns and bright colors. “We really wanted to soften the spaces so they felt a little homier while keeping it true to the modern architecture,” says Alvarez.
The homeowners both lean toward a more rustic farmhouse aesthetic, says Alvarez, “So we tried to pull in those features.”
A dumbwaiter, ample gear storage space and even a dog washing bay for the kids’ dogs are tucked into rooms near the entry. “This was a way to again bring in more whimsy and casualness to the design,” says Alvarez, and to balance the harder lines of the home’s modern structure.
The second floor holds a primary en suite bedroom, kitchen, dining and living area. The three-story staircase is a showstopper of the house, with a wall of windows offering stunning views of Mount Crested Butte. A custom light fixture by Stone Lighting hangs down the three-story stairwell. “They made it specifically so it would fill the space. At night, you can see the chandelier from the street,” says Alvarez. The stair railings, fireplaces and deck railings were custom made by Ira Houseweart, a metalsmith in Paonia, and provide a modern-rustic tone.
Alvarez chose lighting throughout the home to echo the ice and snow of winter, and some fixtures have a prism quality. “When it’s all lit up at night it’s magical,” she says. Outside, wash lights are placed over the stone siding to cast a gently glow as well. Green-hued tile, reclaimed timber and white oak flooring add additional earthiness to the interior.
The kitchen, dining room and family room open into each other, inviting a crowd or just the family. The kitchen’s Dolomite stone countertops are rounded at the corners to soften the lines, and the cabinetry is set against a stone wall with the range hood also made by Houseweart. Cabinetry continues out toward the family room with the larger steel and glass fireplace as centerpiece. Outside, a flagstone patio wraps around the kitchen and family room with ample seating around a wood-burning fireplace open on both sides. Flagstone flooring continues inside the home through the butler’s pantry as well, gradually transitioning the spaces.
“I wanted to bring in natural materials like stone for the things they are interacting with or touching every day, materials that are true to who they are,” says Alvarez of the homeowners.
A gallery of black and white family photos line the hallway leading to the master suite, flanked evenly by sleek modern sconces. The gallery features the family’s many mountain adventures in Crested Butte including their son’s recent wedding in the area.
In the master bedroom, an accent wall is painted with a deep “Amazon green” paint color by Benjamin Moore to anchor the room and complement the greenery outside. The same color is used as an accent throughout the home, while inset baseboards are a nod to more modern aesthetic.
Textural elements in the master bathroom include limestone floors with a live edge. “It’s a way to bring in the exterior,” says Alvarez, who notes that a stone wall in the shower and aspen-facing windows “make you feel almost like you’re outside.”
On the third floor, a large craft room honors the female homeowner’s love of creativity, and colorful cabinetry along with a hammock chair facing the backyard forest keep it playful. A “gazing corridor” lined with windows leads to an additional bedroom and bathroom to provide more spaces for visiting family members to congregate.
In addition to the home’s attached garage, there is a detached, oversized garage to hold the family’s RV for future adventures. The couple moved in this past year with many of their belongings from their former residence, and the plan is to slowly incorporate furnishings that work for the new space as they settle in. “We’re going to build it slowly over the next year or so,” says Alvarez.
Alvarez says she enjoys finishing the interior spaces and fine-tuning the details, “but the real features of this house, which are the views and the architectural elements, are all Andrew and his team.”
