Ghislaine Viñas and S2 Architects Revive an Aspen Ski Home

There’s no mistaking the Aspen, Colorado, home of art collector Paige West and tech executive Christopher Cooper—especially when the garage door is open. Inside, the paneled walls and ski lockers are painted stop-sign red, while carpeting and benches are a complementary crimson shade. “I really like the connection to the Swiss flag and ski patrol,” West says of the arresting color, which is a recurring theme throughout the interiors masterminded by her longtime friend and collaborator, designer Ghislaine Viñas. “I’m not sure anybody’s ever seen a red garage,” West adds. “I think it’s perfect.” 

Growing up in Philadelphia, West developed a love of skiing in the nearby Poconos. When she was a teenager, the family started taking ski trips to Colorado, and in the mid-’80’s her parents decided to buy a place in Aspen. A decade later they acquired the house next door, adding more space for friends and relatives, including West, who put her three boys (now teenagers themselves) on the slopes at an early age. Her family, based in New York, has spent nearly every Christmas in Aspen. So, when West’s parents considered selling both residences a few years ago, she and Cooper (everyone calls him “Coop”) looked at buying or building a new place of their own. But West says she got “a little sentimental” and convinced her parents she should purchase the second house from them—and give it a major overhaul. 

How This Aspen Home Renovation References Swiss Ski Culture 

West enlisted Joseph Spears, principal of Aspen firm S2 Architects, to reimagine the three-level, nearly 6,000-square-foot structure. Out went the mushroom-brown horizontal siding, replaced with bolder charcoal-hued vertical planks. The low-pitched hipped roof was swapped for a strikingly contemporary gabled one that extends out from the living room, creating deep eaves over a cantilevered balcony with glass balustrade. The entire southern facade, which previously had few windows, is now dominated by expanses of glass. “Paige and Coop like living in bright, engaging spaces,” Spears says. “So we opened everything up to make it a lighter chalet sort of idea.” 

Spears worked with Viñas on the interior finishes, opting for a limited palette. Throughout, pale white oak was used for floors, millwork, and many ceilings. “Paige wanted the place to feel very Scandinavian and simple,” says Viñas, who cites inspirations ranging from Aspen’s early Swedish settlers and traditional Alpine architecture to vintage ski bum culture. “We just riffed on things we admired. Then Paige installed her art, adding that amazing contemporary twist.” 

Bright, Artful Interiors Create an Inviting Space to Entertain

West has the luxury of drawing from some 3,800 artworks she has assembled with her father, Alfred West Jr., executive chairman of the financial services firm SEI. She serves as the West Collection’s curator and is overseeing construction of a future home for its display in Philadelphia. West also operated the New York gallery Mixed Greens for nearly two decades and maintains relationships with many of the artists she showed. That includes Mark Mulroney, whom she commissioned to create a mural for the entry stairwell, a cartoonlike mashup of references to Aspen’s wintry landscape and log cabins. “There’s humor and life—it’s bright and happy and very much how we want you to feel here,” West describes. 

Nicknamed the All Inn, the house has been tailored for entertaining. The main social hub is an airy top-level great room with an open kitchen plus a dining area that accommodates 14 seated on traditional Tyrolean–style chairs painted with Swedish folk motifs. Viñas furnished the living area with a sprawling leather-and- wool sectional as well as vintage art deco chairs cushioned with sheepskin throws. In warmer weather, the glass doors can be opened completely to the terrace—outfitted with more red furniture—while on chillier days, there’s usually a fire roaring. Aspen regulations prohibit new woodburning fireplaces, so the ability to keep this one was a prime reason to renovate rather than rebuild. Spears gave the hearth more presence by fashioning a monumental blackened-steel surround with niches for logs and a TV, which cleverly disappears behind a Minako Abe landscape painting that slides on rails. 

Character-Filled Bedrooms Offers Guests a Unique Stay

Each of the home’s eight bedrooms has its own bath and distinctive art and design elements. In a kid’s bedroom, for example, Viñas hung a 1960’s Slim Aarons photograph of skiers lounging on a Swiss mountainside atop a mural of the same image. She enlivened one guest room’s orange four-poster with carvings of birds common to Aspen, and outfitted the undulating headboard of another’s glossy banana-yellow bed with artwork by Mulroney. 

The idiosyncratic details extend to the bathrooms. “When we started, every one was going to be identical,” Viñas notes. “In the end, they could not have been more different. There is a ridiculous amount of detailing, from tile inlays to cabinetry.” 

Storage was a major consideration, particularly with all the gear required for winter sports. In addition to the garage ski storage, there’s a lodge-style basement locker room with bright-red benches for pulling on boots and outerwear closets hand-painted with lively folk patterns by Three Fingers Painting (which executed a similar treatment in the mudroom). Jenna Pino, the firm’s design director, created bespoke wallpaper panels filled with references to the family. “It has lots of little private stories and all sorts of characters,” Viñas says. “Friends are in there, their kids, their dogs.” 

The project took three years start to finish, which speaks to the level of meticulous detail involved. “It was a lengthy process, but that’s why we got so much personality into this,” Viñas summarizes. “The house has a lot of personality.”

Cozy Up in this Striking Aspen Home

PROJECT TEAM 

Inside Look: Dune CEO’s Southampton Home by Sawyer|Berson

Over the past few decades, the New York architecture firm Sawyer|Berson has designed a bevy of houses in the Hamptons. Admired for their stylistic versatility, founding partners Brian Sawyer and John Berson have masterminded everything from stately Colonial Revival residences to bold, contemporary compounds. But never before had the studio worked on a home quite like the one proposed by Richard Shemtov for a wooded single-acre property in Southampton.

Shemtov, the CEO and founder of furniture company Dune, was looking to build a weekend retreat to share with his wife, Dominique, and their three daughters, who range in age from 14 to 26. He envisioned something modestly scaled, modeled after traditional gable-roof barns but in a rigorously pared-down style. Key inspirations were Herzog & de Meuron’s Parrish Art Museum in nearby Water Mill and the Baron House in Sweden by John Pawson.

“It wasn’t our typical commission,” says Sawyer, who has known and worked with Shemtov for years. “It was an exercise in discipline, really, a fun puzzle to work out. We could fit a certain amount of program in the box.” Adds Berson, “As it turned out, that was a deceptively simple idea, to coordinate the plan and section and make the entire composition sing.”

A Southampton Home Three Years in the Making

To create a crisp silhouette, Sawyer and Berson sunk one of the structure’s two main levels entirely below-grade and devised the standing-seam roof, a weathered-gray zinc, so that it is flush with the perimeter edges and has hidden gutters. Expanses of 10-foot-high, black-painted aluminum–framed glass—most of which slide open—line much of the front and rear facades, while the rest of the exterior is clad in a distinctive recycled-glass brick.

The house’s ground floor encompasses an open living/dining area, the kitchen, and four bedrooms. The loftlike basement level—housing several entertaining areas, Shemtov’s home office, a laundry room, a gym, and a kitchenette—is completely column-free, which added significantly to the engineering complexity of the project. The house also expanded a bit as plans developed: A custom-fabricated carport was tacked on and room was carved out below the eaves to create a half level, a cozy attic den that can double as a guest bedroom. “It’s the house we wanted,” Shemtov says. “But we went way over budget and it took nearly three years to build.”

Interiors are by Homeowner Richard Shemtov

A big chunk of that time was devoted to fitting out the 8,000-square-foot interiors. It’s not uncommon for Sawyer|Berson to handle every aspect of a project—architecture, interiors, landscape—as can be seen in the duo’s forthcoming monograph, to be published by Rizzoli this fall in advance of the firm’s 25th anniversary. But in this case Shemtov oversaw the interiors himself, his first time designing a project of this scale. “Every inch of the house was considered and thought out, almost to the point where it was obsessive,” he admits.

A Courtyard Garden by Sawyer|Berson Brightens the Lower Level

The art is mostly things the homeowners have collected over years, works by friends or that have a personal resonance. One new acquisition is the Bernardo Siciliano painting of a restaurant interior that hangs in the dining area. The scene felt distinctly familiar to Shemtov, who learned after he bought it that the artist had based it on Lincoln, a restaurant in Lincoln Center where Dune created a custom banquette.

To bring light down into the lower level, Sawyer|Berson, which oversaw landscaping, created a courtyard garden with a series of amphitheater-style concrete terraces that are arrayed with a profusion of potted plants. “I originally saw it as a kind of hanging garden with things tumbling down,” says Sawyer. “Richard came up with the idea of lining it with pots, which I think is fun and punchy.”

The focal point of the rear grounds is a minimalist swimming pool, surrounded by porcelain-tile coping and a sweep of precisely graded lawn. There’s an outdoor kitchen and a poolside dining pergola, as well as a covered terrace that’s become one of the family’s favorite hangout spots. Shemtov imagines spending weekends and summers here with the girls—and, eventually, their families—for many years to come. “Labor of love is a commonly used term,” he says, “but with this house, it resonates a lot.”

Inside a Southampton Home by Sawyer|Berson 

sawyer|berson: alex taylor wilk

blue sky design: structural engineer

bk kuck construction: general contractor

toulemonde bochart: rug (lounge)

normann copenhagen: small side table

romo: chair fabric (lounge), drapery sheers (living area, dining area), banquette fabric (mudroom), bench fabric, window-treatment fabric (guest bedroom), settee fabric (main bedroom)

anna karlin: pendant fixture (dining area)

élitis: chair fabric

crosby street studios: rugs (dining area, guest bedroom)

schmitt design: chandelier (living area)

pollack: sectional fabric

kerry joyce: chair fabric

through jeff lincoln art & design: cocktail table, side tables

Ortal: fireplace

foro marble: fireplace stone

stone source: floor tile (mudroom)

renson: custom carport, custom pergola (exterior)

damien hirst: wallpaper (bedroom)

art + loom: rug

Knoll Textiles: wall fabric

robert allen: headboard fabric

brinklicht: pendant fix­tures (kitchen)

corian: countertops

piet boon: stools

wolf: oven

California Faucets: sink fittings

through lee jofa: drapery fabric (main bedroom)

c & c milano: bed fabric

céline wright: pendant fixture

beadlight: sconces

jab: chair fabric, ottoman fabric (main bedroom), chair fabric (game area)

mgs milano: outdoor shower (guest bedroom)

pelican pools: pool (terrace)

ceramiche refin: pavers

lindsay cowles: wallpaper (bedroom)

paul smith: lamp

loro piana: chair fabric

verzelloni: bench

jane churchill: bench fabric

modernica: screens (game area)

Moooi: pendant fixture

salvatori: wall tile (bathroom)

concrete collaborative: countertop stone

ann sacks: floor tile

brizo: sink fittings

&tradition: lamp (den)

fleetwood windows & doors: windows, exterior doors

rheinzink: roof

harbour outdoor: outdoor furniture

Stonhard: resin floor coating

benjamin moore & co.: paint