The Mountain House

Dover, VT

The design for this family vacation home was inspired, in part, by the traditional chalets surrounding Klosters, Switzerland, which sit on equally challenging sites. The post-and-beam frame, windows and exterior doors, siding, flooring, millwork, and cabinetry were custom-made by New England craftsmen using recycled wood.

The Mountain House

For their new vacation home, a family of six wanted a residence that would remind them of their time living in Switzerland and would also be integrated into the quieter New England landscape. Cradled between a mountain slope and ski trails, the Mountain House feels as though it has been there for years. The rocky, wooded site presented many constraints, yet the house is seated serenely into the slope of the land, unifying the built with the natural.

Our clients were nearing the end of their time in Zurich, where one of them was a bank executive. They had the briefest of briefs (program): that the house be able to accommodate a large extended family and be a very quiet home. The Mount Snow slope-side lot was constricted by two streams, a public ski trail through the lot, and the ski slope itself. Vermont’s conservation regulations (Act 250) limited the buildable footprint to under 5,000 square feet. The clients wanted certain features like the stonework and interior finishes to match the indigenous features of the 400-year-old chalets they were familiar with. Also, the clients would be living in Zurich until the house was completed.

With such a small brief, we were free to take the design wherever we wanted to. Initially, the project called for a 2,500 square foot house for $1M, but ended up being 5,000 square feet at $5M. The initial concepts strongly responded to the site conditions. The owners responded well, so the final design was not all that different. What changed was the degree of customization and the use of traditional design elements—so much so that our clients flew two of our team to Switzerland to look at chalets and meet the craftsmen who were to fabricate the interior paneling. Also, almost every component of the house went from “off the shelf” to custom fabrication by local craftsmen and artisans. The culmination was the owners contracting with a small woodworking shop in Klosters, Switzerland, where most of the interior wall paneling was fabricated and shipped to the site along with four craftsmen who spent six weeks doing the installation.