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Park City architect Dale Ayers combines green features with site-sensitive design to shape his ultra-modern mountain home.
Mention Park City and images of lodge-like homes peppering the peaks with heavy, log-laden forms come to mind. But for Dale Ayers, design architect for the area’s exclusive Promontory development, this isn’t the only option suitable for this magnificent mountain town setting.
For proof, consider the unique dwelling Ayers recently designed and built in the private community. Perched on a sage-covered hillside as if ready to take flight, this home’s winged overhangs and angular forms showcase a decidedly modern take on the mountain home vernacular.
While Ayers’ creation is a daring departure from neighboring lodge-like residences, it shares many of the same elements and characteristics. Large open living spaces and soaring ceilings? Check. Design inspired by and oriented toward spectacular views? You bet. Log and timber construction? Right again.
Well, sort of. Unlike the more familiar Lincoln Log-type construction, this home features straight-lined, stacked beamed walls representing an alternative approach to the age-old method of building homes.
“We don’t use round logs, we use beams,” says Charlie Taylor, senior project coordinator from Park City’s Custom Scandinavian Home. The company’s factory is in Finland, where wood harvested from sustainable forests is milled to exact specifications provided by Taylor and his team.
“We are an in-house engineering and manufacturing company,” he says. “We typically develop architectural drawings for clients, but as an architect, Dale created his own and then worked with our design engineer, who created CAD drawings and structural calculations that were forwarded to Finland.”
There, the beams were custom-cut to the nearest millimeter and then packaged, along with windows and doors, before being shipped directly to the Utah home site.
Organized and wrapped in a numbered order, the beams arrived in three large shipping containers. During construction, the beam walls were raised to form the exterior and interior structural components of Ayers’ contemporary dwelling.
“The walls are basically formed using a tongue-and-groove system, tightly fit with a foam component between the beams that acts like mortar does between bricks,” says Taylor. This construction method is just one of the many elements that makes Ayers’ home unique. Another, of course, is the spectacular site.
Set on a 2.6-acre lot, the house is surrounded by spectacular views: the expansive Wasatch Range to the west, unobstructed landscapes to the north and all three of Park City’s mountainside ski resorts. Ayers created the home to capture it all.
“People say this is a great lot, but it’s actually a matter of analyzing the lot, then designing around it,” he says.
To do this, Ayers framed the breathtaking views to the west and south with floor-to-ceiling walls of windows. These expanses of glass not only create the interior’s ‘wow’ factor, they also invite the sun’s passive solar power to warm the interior.
Conversely, the north and east walls feature more beamed walls and smaller windows to help buffer winter’s wrath. In all directions throughout the home’s 7,250 square feet of living space, Ayers oriented the rooms toward the views.
One enters the home through a single glass door into an understated foyer. Beyond, a glimpse of the next level’s wall of glass and floating orb fireplace comes into view. “Right then, you know you are in for something different,” says Ayers.
A few steps up and you enter the large living space, positioned like a stage overlooking an audience of sage-covered hills and breathtaking views to the west. “By not placing an entertainment balcony in front of windows, I maximized the floor-to-ceiling views,” says Ayers. “It’s like stadium seating.”
Up another short flight of open stairs, and the performance continues on the home’s main living area level. Sitting at center stage is the home’s show-stopping kitchen.
A theatrical interplay of angles, geometric shapes, high-tech surfaces and cutting-edge colors combine to give this cooking space an anything-but-conventional look and feel. “I wanted to create a big kitchen that was an architectural statement inside the house, says Ayers.
With the help of kitchen designer Tom Zick from The Kitchen Design Studio in Park City, he accomplished just that. And while the kitchen’s micro-lacquered finishes, stainless steel surfaces and ultra-contemporary forms give it a more-show-than-go appearance, it’s actually designed for efficiency.
Like all luxury kitchens, this version has space and plenty of it. However, unlike many others, according to Zick, this room doesn’t have you running from one end of the room to the other. Describing what he calls the triangular galley kitchen, Zick says, “This kitchen works because it has distinct work areas segregating various functions.”
Along the hypotenuse of the center triangular-shaped island is the main prep area. Directly behind that is the main eating bar that houses multiple under-counter refrigeration drawers (no vertical, view-blocking fridge in this house).
On the opposite side of the island, twin dishwashers and a clean-up sink sit opposite another set of counters hosting the cook top and grill. “I love the galley kitchen layout because with one turn 180 degrees, you can work at another countertop,” says Zick.
For Ayers, they kitchen’s appeal goes beyond its showmanship and functional design. “I love the way it maintains the flow of living within the space,” he says.
Joining the kitchen in filling out the open area of the main living level are a dining area, family room, laundry and powder rooms and two separate bedrooms—one of which is a master suite—both closed off with large shoji panels.
“We decided to have no doors on the main floor of the house,” says Ayers. One level up, a sauna, another bedroom and a second master suite join a cantilevered skyloft that overlooks the lower living areas and the panoramic vistas. Perhaps of all spaces, it embodies Ayers’ overall design intent.
“From an architectural standpoint, you see everything—the inside of the house and the amazing mountain scenery at the same time,” says Ayers as he gazes from the open loft. “From my point of view, it’s the best spot in the house.”
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