Mountain Modern -vs- Mountain Traditional

The Beauty of Great Design is that it is Always Appropriate.

With the creation of the term Mountain Modern, design teams have been given additional freedom to define the homes of the diverse mountain landscape. When we sit down and design a home, the client, site, and program define the home.

But what defines the feel?

Where Should We Put the TV?

A Common Conundrum in Modern Architecture.

Great rooms serve many purposes but mainly are designed as a place to congregate with family and friends. This comfortable, well-detailed space is typically tied to the kitchen and dining room, and its sole purpose is to be a comfortable place to connect with people. Part of that connection can be watching sporting events or TV shows that are enjoyed by the family, which leads to the most important question, where to place the TV.

Welcoming Entries

A Well Planned Entry provides a Warm and Inviting Portal into your Home.

The entry of your home establishes a mood for your visitor. It can be formal, informal, structured, or freeform, but it is the first impression that invites guests into your home. In our high alpine environments we tend to give our entries double duty, serving as an entry point to the home and as an exterior living space. These entries also take into account the …

A Family Getaway Built into the Hillside

Nestled on a secluded site in Bridger Canyon, Montana, this home is the perfect spot for rest, relaxation, and spectacular views.

The secluded 20-acre lot of this hillside retreat in Bridger Canyon, Montana, provided a welcome challenge to position the home high up a small ravine. The elevation offered an overlook of a dense natural aspen grove, good solar exposure, and close proximity to natural rock outcroppings. With an abundance of natural sunlight, broad hillside views, and a strong connection to the site, the result was well worth the effort.

In addition to the stunning views, …

A Bozeman Home Built for Holiday Gatherings

With expansive views of Gallatin Valley and the Bridger Range, this couple’s mountain modern retreat is warm and cozy while accommodating a crowd.

Excited about its expansive views as well as the proximity to family, these empty-nesters chose a gorgeous piece of property in the Triple Tree subdivision of Bozeman, Montana, for their new mountain retreat. With warm, natural materials, an abundance of natural light, and plenty of gathering spaces as well as private hideaways, the result is a stunning home that acts both as a cozy private abode and the perfect spot for …

A Mountain Farmhouse with Fishing Ties

He designs fishing rods, she’s a fishing guide, and this is their rustic-meets-modern farmhouse—a mountain retreat that’s as elegant as it is warm and inviting.

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, this couple wanted their full-time residence in Livingston, Montana, to be practical and humble, allowing the outstanding landscape to do all the talking. With a casual-yet-welcoming entry, a kitchen that nods to farmhouse history, an incredible indoor-outdoor connection, and the utmost consistency in architectural detail—the final result is …

A Bozeman Home Built for Views & a Crew

A Rustic-Chic Montana Abode brings the Outdoors in.

This luxurious home, which sits right off the fairway at the prestigious Black Bull golf community in Bozeman, Montana, was designed with the homeowners’ three main goals in mind: space for the husband to run his business, guest quarters for the couple’s extended family visits, and ample room for friends to visit (and have their own leg room while doing so). The result?

A Bozeman Farmhouse with Contemporary Flair

A Creative Spin on the Traditional Western Home.

On the green of Black Bull, a private golf community in Bozeman, Montana, sits what at first glance appears to be a Western farmhouse. But upon closer inspection, one will see that this Bozeman home takes a sharp left turn from the typical farmhouse concept, blending Western elements into its bright and airy interiors.

Built for a couple with a growing family, the “contemporary farmhouse” design is a hole in one: It’s a destination for visiting family members, as well as a place for the kids to grow and enjoy. On the outside, contemporary shapes meet a Western palette. On the inside, …

The Power of Window Design

The architectural importance of window design in your mountain home.

When building a mountain home, windows are one of the most important considerations in the overall design, because they determine how the home will relate to its surroundings, from the amount of sunlight the windows provide to the vistas they frame.

Windows are also an especially powerful way to accentuate the design style of the home, by carrying out the vision for the home beyond just the furniture and appliances. Aluminum window frames reflect and enhance the sleek feel of a contemporary home, while wooden window frames speak to a more rustic or traditional style. Or consider bi-fold doors, which double as windows when closed, and altogether blur the lines between …

Wild Rose

When Andrew Brechbuhler first glimpsed the site for the Klann family’s family’s home in Bozeman, Montana, he immediately knew this project was destined to take full advantage of the stunning views. “Our approach is always to design for the site,” says Brechbuhler, principal architect at Brechbuhler Architects. “This parcel has spectacular views, both of the Bridgers and the Gallatin Range. It was on a slightly sloping lot, and that allowed us to ….

Capturing the Light

This contemporary mountain home in the Bridgers speaks to the landscape and how the architecture lives on the land. Sitting on 290 acres in the Bridger Mountains in Southwest Montana, this mountain home did …

Calm on the Landscape

A Bozeman homes strikes a balance between privacy and accessibility. For many of its residents, the Black Bull golf community, a few miles outside of Bozeman, Montana, represents a perfect compromise. It’s a way of living in a …

For the Love of the Catch

DIANA RUDOLPH AND JERRY SIEM REMEMBER the last time they remodeled a home together. It was a little fly-fishing cabin on the Jefferson River, a traditional log structure with rooms added on over time. The couple spent a summer fixing it up, using a …

A Farmhouse with Flair

The trick these days, increasingly, is to find yourself some kind of a home, a refuge amid the competing demands of the day, a place that …

Before & After

Outside of Bozeman, down a pastoral road that was paved a little over a year ago, a home orientates itself in a landscape where old barns and grain silos still serve a purpose, and lazy cattle graze under an expansive Montana sky.

Tim and Toni Rote purchased the home in 2008, and today it looks like a ….

Western Contemporary

Modern influences meet timber and stone for a new take on the rustic tradition. Dovetail Construction is the “realization of a childhood dream” for founders and close friends Tim Rote and Kevin Sullivan, who met in kindergarten and built forts together in the woods while talking of dump trucks and plywood. They knew at an early age that they wanted two things: to live in the mountains and to build.

“(Kevin’s) father was a builder, so we’ve been in construction for all of our lives, and we’ve always …

Here to Stay

After vacationing in Montana for years and commuting to the region from other states, a couple finally …

Rustic Sophistication

This sprawling Montana residence is full of rustic yet sophisticated design elements that inspire entertaining and connecting.