Architect's Choice Awards: Aspen home gets close to nature

By Kate Bailey, Special to the Rocky

Friday, March 28, 2008

Daniel Bayer / Special To The Rocky

A "glass box" living room appears to float in the landscape at Bill and Maria Smithburg's Aspen home. Visual connections to the 10-acre site permeate the house.

Daniel Bayer / Special To The Rocky

Rich wood and stone accents adorn the library. A Renaissance-inspired palette of muted grays, blues and reds colors the home.

Pat Sudmeier / Special To The Rocky

Alternating indoor and outdoor spaces attach to and extend from the central spine of the house. "When you step outside a door, you are directly in the landscape," Maria Smithburg says.

Daniel Bayer / Special To The Rocky

Homeowners Bill and Maria Smithburg posed quite a challenge for their architect, Larry Yaw. Bill loves all things modern, while Maria has a taste for the Old World. "Instead of fusing the two styles together, we chose to confront the contemporary and traditional styles and make them interact and contrast with each other," Yaw says.

David Marlow / Special To The Rocky

Glass and exposed timber beams meet in the dining room.

Pat Sudmeier / Special To The Rocky

UP True to the original goal of connecting the home to the outdoors, nary a deck nor a patio extends from the ground floor.

He loves all things modern: glass, raw steel and concrete. She's enamored of Old World design: masonry walls, exposed timber beams and distressed hickory floors.

So pity the poor architect who had to design a home for Bill and Maria Smithburg, right?

Larry Yaw handled it. In fact, he handled it so well that the home won a 2007 Architects' Choice award from the American Institute of Architects' Denver chapter.

The couple's 10,800-square- foot Aspen home seamlessly melds the new and the old.

"Instead of fusing the two styles together, we chose to confront the contemporary and traditional styles and make them interact and contrast with each other," says Yaw, of Cottle Car Yaw Architects.

He collaborated with Argentinian-born Maria, a trained architect and practicing landscape architect, and Bill, a retired CEO of Quaker Oats.

A few years ago, the Smithburgs bought a site with breathtaking views of Mount Sopris and the Elk Range, so taking advantage of the view was important in the home design.

"As you make your way through the home, windows big and small reveal different aspects of the outdoors," Maria says. "Sometimes it is more intimate, sometimes more expansive. Light permeates throughout the rooms all day."

Alternating indoor and outdoor spaces attach to and extend from the central spine, beginning with a caretaker's apartment and ending with a "glass box" living room that appears to float in the landscape.

Yaw ensured that each detail would support a visual connection to the 10-acre site. "We were also careful to make choices that were considerate of the environment and would minimize the impact of the building on the native landform."

True to the original goal of connecting the home to the outdoors, nary a deck nor a patio extends from the ground floor.

"When you step outside a door, you are directly in the landscape," says Maria, who maintained the intimacy of an Aspen grove by designing a series of outdoor areas, including a formal sunken garden on the eastern side and a softer pastoral view on the west.

Inside the home, furnishings and accessories have an exotic flair.

"We tend to buy pieces for our homes while traveling, so a lot of the furnishings come from Europe or Buenos Aires," she says.

The mixture of old and new is evident throughout, particularly in the living room, where a wrought-iron chandelier floats above a collection of contemporary chairs and sofas, which rest on a traditional Oriental rug.

Color was all-important to the interior design, says Maria, who chose a Renaissance-inspired palette of muted grays, blues and reds.

"I didn't want the interiors to clash with the outside," she says. "Instead, they add to the surroundings."

The home is a "journey of mind and body," Maria says. "Our home never reveals itself in one view but rather gradually unfolds before your eyes."

The details:

* Size: 10,800- square-foot Aspen home

* Site: 10 acres

* Materials: wood frame with steel beams and columns, native stone veneer and stained cedar siding, single-ply roofing, aluminum- clad wood windows, cold-rolled-steel window system, custom wood doors

* Architects' Choice Awards are judged by a panel from the Rocky Mountain News, the AIA Denver chapter and the city and county of Denver.

To find out more about the competition, call Tracey Edwards at 303-446-2266, ext. 15.