Unlike many homes built in the Wood River Valley in which the focus is on taking in the surrounding views and the home itself takes a back seat to the landscape, this 4,910-square-foot home in East Fork is the main event, with a unique central courtyard feature, four distinct and parallel gable forms, and a number of visual surprises.
The design of any home project is dependent on the topography of the land it’s to be built on, and for this project, rather than bulldoze and level off the 1.5-acre plot, architect Mike Doty decided to work with it, building the home in what’s almost a sunken portion of the plot—about three feet below grade—allowing for natural privacy as opposed to berms or wall construction. On the other side, the house comes to grade. One of the most prominent features of the home is the central courtyard, on which the entire home is focused.
The courtyard falls between the gabled roof forms, which sit over the main living area and the three bedrooms, providing high-volume spaces in the home’s main areas and flat-roofed areas over secondary spaces like the garage, laundry room, and den. To visually connect the two gabled roof forms, a steel trellis was added, the slats of which create playful shadows across the courtyard, as do other steel trellises that provide cover over the other various outdoor spaces, or “microclimates,” as Doty refers to them.
“I think when you’re living in the house, you can almost tell the time of day by where the shadows are being cast,” he says. From the street, the home has a low profile. In the afternoon light, shadows through the trellis slats make the exterior look like a log cabin.
The home’s various outdoor spaces offer various levels of exposure or shade depending on the time of day. The home’s four roof gables help with this, with the large primary gable extending over 13 feet to the north of the living room to provide a covered outdoor living space connected to the interior through large, glazed doors and an interior/exterior double-sided fireplace. To the west, a steel trellis provides shade and cover to an outdoor cooking area, and to the east lies the courtyard, complete with landscaping, outdoor dining and lounge areas, and a fire pit in an alcove that opens to a hot tub deck and large backyard lawn area.
For homeowner Leslie Benz, simplicity was key. “I wanted a simple roof, simple materials, simple layout,” she says. With both her children grown and with families of their own, she didn’t need much more than the home’s three-bedroom footprint. When she does have visitors, the home opens up and allows for connection quite easily, through the sliding doors to and across the courtyard.
While the home is simple in nature, “the closer you look, the better it gets,” says Doty, with thoughtful details throughout and refined craftsmanship. For instance, the siding of the flat roof portions of the home are lighter in tone than the dark horizontal siding of the gabled parts, creating a clear distinction and contrast. Metal around the windows creates a kind of picture frame effect, giving the exterior more texture and three-dimensionality. Another subtle, accidental detail, is the slope of the roofline almost perfectly matching the pitch of the hillside beyond.
For the interior of the home, Benz called on longtime friend and interior designer Jennifer Goitiandia, with whom Benz shares a similar style and affinity for natural materials. Working from inspirational photos, Goitiandia took Benz’s vision and had fun with it, using her knowledge of Benz’s style to provide her with just a few choices. “Leslie’s a great client because she knows what she wants and appreciates someone doing the groundwork for her,” says Goitiandia.
The result is a home with a mix of natural materials, like oak wood floors and American clay walls; natural, organic patterns; and the use of blues, greens, browns, and creams. Goitiandia has certain vendors she uses outside the Valley, but she loves to source locally as much as possible, from businesses including Topnotch, Stuhlbergs, Red Door, and Good Riddance for antiques.
The end result is just as Benz envisioned: simple. “It’s just the vibe I was looking for—it’s very calm,” she says. “It’s easy to have people over, it’s easy to be quiet, it’s easy to have little kids running around in the back yard; it just has a good feel to it. It’s definitely not the biggest house in the Valley, but it’s exactly what I wanted.”
