In Deer Valley, designers Stephanie Hunt and Hope Chapelle join forces to channel their clients’ love of art and color into a home that pulses with unexpected energy and charm.
Photos by Rebekah Westover
What started as a mountain modern build project for designer Stephanie Hunt, aka The Flairhunter, quickly turned into a contemporary collaboration with Hope Chappelle of Hughen House, another master at organic modern design.
When Hunt realized she wouldn’t have the time available to design the home from start to finish, she recruited Chappelle to add her clean modern aesthetic to The Flairhunter’s spark, resulting in a home filled with personality.
The home’s exterior, with its neutral stone and reclaimed wood slats, doesn’t strongly signal the colorful contemporary mashup waiting inside, but amid these conventional mountain home materials are hints of the modern whimsy that persists through every detail of the design.
Step into the entry, and it becomes evident that this is a home full of unexpected moments. A monumental custom pivot door introduces the contemporary flair with its horizontal planes of wood and glass. Inside, immediate doses of color emerge, including the home’s custom-graffitied elevator shaft located off the entry beneath the modern staircase.
In a svelte game area tucked to the left of the front door, art deco inspiration flourishes. Its moody bar area is anchored by a wall of dark glass tile with dimensional color, accentuated by custom track lighting. “In early design meetings, the homeowner really fell in love with the color and pattern of specific tiles,” shares Hunt. As a result, the design of many rooms was uniquely driven by colorful tile rather than more conventional inspiring elements like furniture or rugs.
The bar’s dark color palette continues in the entry level’s powder room and storage area alike. The powder room boasts chic houndstooth tile and a gleaming black marble vanity, while the ski-in, ski-out gear room features entirely black customized millwork. Each locker is compartmentalized to the inch for specific items, from ski coats to dog leashes.
Personalized detail was similarly expressed in the kitchen, on the next level of the home. “This was easily one of the most customized kitchen millwork projects I’ve been a part of,” says Hunt. But despite the intricate needs for her kitchen’s functionality, the wife surprisingly based the room’s design, once again, on tile. The gray-blue tones of the backsplash’s New Ravenna tile repeat on colorful appliances and on the cabinetry of the island and adjoining pantry.
Just outside the kitchen, a serene great room and high-style dining area both inject additional colors into the palette, culminating in a perfectly matched Pierre Frey fabric on the dining chairs. “That fabric features every single color of the house,” says Chappelle.
In the great room, hip hues of mustard yellow and cool purple infuse the swanky gathering area, complemented by a hard-working fireplace. “The plaster surrounding the fireplace has almost a sueded finish that softens its enormous scale in the room and ensures the design isn’t overwhelming,” Chappelle says.
Though the home’s views are breathtaking enough, this family has a robust art collection they were dying to display. And as art lovers themselves, Hunt and Chapelle couldn’t resist opportunities to show pieces off in unexpected ways. In the upper powder room, for example, a brazenly colorful wallcovering matches minimal orange details in an abstract painting. Down a hallway, a blue-drenched artwork pulls the tones from the kitchen further through the living area.
Even the home’s multi-level steel stairwell, crafted by Lightning Forge in Murray, is a perfect microcosm of the home’s architectural artistry.
“The stairwell was fully fabricated off site, then craned in from the street above,” explains Hunt. “It is beautiful and truly sculptural—it’s like the backbone of the home.”
With spectacular vision from designers and homeowners alike, this home emerged as an impressive collage of color, pattern and sleek spaces—a departure from the expected mountain home fare, but a beloved respite for its fun-loving inhabitants.
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