DILLON — There’s a floor in Jay and Susie Weinstein’s second home that only children dare walk on.
“The kids don’t care,” says Susie Weinstein. “We let them take their shoes off, and they love to get on it.”
Fear and awe get the best of everyone else, including the man who built it, because it’s hard to feel at ease when you are walking on glass.
The entry foyer with its 8-foot round glass floor insert is the “wow factor” alerting visitors that this is no ordinary mountain home.
When well lit from the skylight above, the glass floor showcases a clear view down to the circular wine-tasting room below. It’s just one of many eye-catching features in this vacation abode. Other eye-catchers in this unusual dwelling include vaulted ceilings, strong architectural lines, and materials usually seen in industrial and commercial buildings.
Visitors could hardly be blamed if, equipped with blinders to the outside world, they mistook the interior, adorned with corrugated metal, stucco, exposed steel beams and liquid metal, for a large urban loft.
You won’t find the typical mountain design elements in this modern space. There’s not a log, antler rack or river- rock wall in sight.
“Most people build contemporary homes in the city and cabins in the mountains, but we did just the opposite,” says Jay Weinstein.
The couple’s main residence is a traditional home in the Washington Park area. But since both retired, Jay from hospital management and Susie from surgical nursing, they’ve been spending more time in the house designed for their favorite pastime: entertaining.
The 6,858-square-foot, multilevel mountain home features a series of impressive panoramic views of the Gore Range, Beckenridge, Peak One, Mount Baldy, Lake Dillon and Tenderfoot Mountain.
The expansive kitchen, private guest suite with separate family room and fireplace, a bar, two guest bedrooms with adjoining baths and a “mini-master” complete with bath and garden view, make this the ultimate retreat.
When the Weinsteins moved into the Corinthian Hills subdivision 15 years ago, they owned the duplex next door, and the adjacent property where their new house now sits was vacant. Fearing that someone would build on that spot, they sold the duplex, purchased the land and built their dream home in 1996.
The hardest part of the entire process for the Weinsteins was finding an architect who listened and accepted their contemporary vision. They interviewed architects for six months, during which companies from the area offered what was common: stone and rough-hewn wood. The Weinsteins wanted clean lines, porcelain tile, rounded ceilings and bamboo floors.
“We were telling them that we didn’t want what everyone else had,” says Susie Weinstein. “We wanted a different look. I wasn’t sure that any designers in the area could provide that for us, which is why we kept interviewing more and more people, hoping someone would share our vision.”
A close friend eventually suggested they talk with Tom Connolly of tc3 Architects in Frisco. Connolly’s roots in commercial design helped him click immediately with the Weinsteins, and the prospect of mapping the course for an industrial-style, modern home in the mountains excited him.
Susie spent a year educating herself on the latest in design and building trends by reading magazines and watching HGTV programming. While considering trends, she kept only the aspects that jelled with their taste and lifestyle, and discarded the rest. For example, even though most new homes today have a designated room for an office, Jay didn’t want that. Instead, the active couple loves to ski, snowshoe and hike, so an exercise room to keep them limber was a must-have.
Susie didn’t want to hire a decorator and instead wanted to use her research to put her own stamp on the home. She went head-to-head with the crews to make sure she got specific features that she wanted: built-ins and a loft off the master suite, and granite- topped sideboards that, because of hidden supports, appear to float.
The Weinsteins stuck to their budget, with the total build cost just a little over $1 million. The only element that Susie went overboard on was lighting, a feature many designers say doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Cable lighting in the great room, a Carol Hall glass chandelier in the dining room, contemporary low-voltage Swarovsky crystal fixtures in the kitchen and sconces aside rather than atop the master bedroom mirror added up quickly, Susie said.
Meanwhile, Connolly had to balance Susie’s progressive design ideas with the tastes and requirements of the town and governing homeowners association. To accomplish this, smaller-scale traditional elements, including a gable and shed roof topping one garage, were designed to sit closer to the street and public view, while the arched roof on the second garage, larger in scale, was set farther back.
“The neighborhood is evolving from very simple designs of 20 or 30 years ago to the log- accented and typical mountain stuff to the more contemporary ones like the Weinsteins have,” Connolly said.
Connolly’s main focus was “not to screw up the sun and the view and the air.” His layout aims to emphasize the beauty of Tenmile Range. For example, one wall in the master bedroom is angled outward so the couple can have a better view of Buffalo Mountain while lounging in bed.
Outside, Connolly pulled focus away from the garages in the front by adding a red trellis sculptural element that leads the eye to the entryway. Inside, trusses shaped to look like bridges were inverted to bring down the scale of the great room’s 24-foot ceilings.
A visitor could spend all day in this house discovering its many one-of-a-kind features. Their circular wine room has a floor-to-ceiling, 18-foot semi- circle wall made of glass block. The remaining portion of the wall includes embedded bottle holders.
The radial stairs, made from laminated wood, unfold from the foyer to the great room. When you walk down the stairs and look back up, the stairs appear tiger-striped, the result of a process where a variety of wood types are stacked and then glued together. Meanwhile the soft, natural quality of the maple cabinetry throughout the home contrasts with the darker stained bamboo floors.
The hub of the home, the kitchen, is 850 square feet with an L-shaped bar with seating for 14, and a separate bar area for preparing drinks. All countertops are granite, and the kitchen features two dishwashers. A separate pantry with additional prep space is yet another feature that equips the home for entertaining. The backsplash (and the fireplace surround in the great room) is made of textured liquid metal with bronze relief.
By far, the hippest feature of the house is the NanaWall system that connects the kitchen to the 300-square-foot deck. Normally used in commercial design, the door folds against the wall, and leads to a 20-foot opening to the stained-concrete deck.
“In spite of all the innovations, we didn’t blow the bank,” said Bill Snead of WTS Builders in Breckenridge, who constructed the house. “I credit that to the owner’s ability to make quick decisions. A lot of people really struggle when building a new home. They have so many options that they get bogged down in the details. But the Weinsteins were very motivated.”
Snead is most proud of the fact that every room in the house, from the top to the bottom, has an interesting mix of materials. The lower bathroom, for example, has green Avonite glass countertops, unique tile and fixtures.
“I’m very proud of that house,” Snead said. “It was different and ambitious, but they pulled it off. It’s a real extension of their personalities. They are very warm just like their house.”
Sheba R. Wheeler: 303-954-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com
