MORRISON — Wander up toward the home of Christoph and Kira Heinrich, and you’ll quickly see why they live in this house tucked snugly in the foothills.
Four feisty, loving dogs bound out to greet visitors with slobbery kisses and dusty paws.
“Never go to a fundraiser at the Dumb Friends League,” Kira says with a broad grin.
Her husband shakes a little dust off his shoes, then glances between the ponderosa pines at a sweeping view beyond the barn. He shrugs and laughs. “It’s a great place for animals,” says Christoph, 50, who was named director of the Denver Art Museum on Jan. 1.
When looking for their Colorado home, the Heinrichs wanted land for dogs and cats and horses, he says. What this couple of 20 years found is a little piece of high-country bliss — just 40 minutes from the city.
“Of course we love art and culture,” he says, “but we love nature so much… You couldn’t (have this) in L.A.”
The couple had also agreed that in Colorado they would have horses as Kira was once a competitive rider.
Now, inside their barn, four kittens slumber on saddles and horse blankets or frolic in the hay the couple have been hauling into the barn.
“Really, they smell more like horses than they do cats,” says Kira, brushing hay off her jeans. It is, Christoph says as he wanders up toward the home with his wife, a perfect spot for them.
The house, built in 1976, suits its setting.
“It was first owned by astronaut Wally Schirra,” Christoph says, pointing to the long-abandoned helipad behind the barn, which the late astronaut used to fly in and out of his mountain retreat.
Another owner had no use for it and built the barn right on the edge of the slab, ending its useful days. But it’s still a great place to set out a big feast.
“That’s where we put out the banquet table when we had people over for Christoph’s 50th birthday party,” says Kira, 44. “People love to come up here. They think it’s a mini-vacation.”
The landing pad isn’t visible from most of the tall windows inside the home, but that’s about the only blind spot.
In every room of the 4,000-square- foot home, especially the third-floor master bedroom, floor-to-ceiling windows offer views of pines, as well as aspens lower down.
“We love that it seems like a treehouse,” says Christoph, who moved with Kira from Germany in 2007, when he joined DAM as the curator of modern and contemporary art.
Conscious of fire hazards, the couple worked hard to clear the area of trees and shrubs close to the home. In doing so, they opened up vistas of the Denver skyline. Far off in the distance, the tented roof of Denver International Airport appears as a series of small dots, as if the world’s master planner took a can of white paint and a tiny brush to brighten the otherwise earthy brown landscape.
“Look at the trees,” Christoph says, pointing to the windows that offer the couple a lovely sight in the early hours of the morning. On a breezy September day, a Steller’s jay bobs its crested head and lets out a harsh cry, startling a bluebird on a nearby tree.
Foxes, deer, elk and other wildlife are common on this property, Kira says. They’ve had no sightings of bears, but she heard from a neighbor that a mountain lion recently turned up near the driveway.
The home’s main floor features a raised living room, which is open to both dining room and kitchen. Rustic Spanish tile blends in with the oak wood that defines this house. An artful chandelier hangs from a heavy beam over the long dining room table. The couple agrees that the modern piece, which sports globe-like glass balls, honors the late astronaut, whom they credit with making the home earth- friendly.
“Kira calls it an intelligent house,” says Christoph, his long strides leading the way to one of three patio areas in the house. “It knows how to deal with the heat and cold.”
Though it has no air conditioning, the home is surprisingly cool on a warm day. Two fireplaces and a fire pit help heat the home in the winter. Among other renovations, Kira says they plan to put in solar panels.
Christoph says that the architect who designed the house was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright. But Kira, an art history professor at the University of Colorado, will point to the soul of the house, no matter who inspired it.
“It’s elegant and rustic at the same time,” she says. “It’s simple, and every window is square and straight.”
Art director and art professor alike are somewhat quiet about the artwork that’s scattered around their home. She’s tuned into minimalism; he loves baroque art. They laugh as they point to pieces hanging opposite each other on the walls of their bedroom.
“See, that’s his,” Kira says, pointing to a baroque-influenced piece. “And that’s mine,” she says, waving to a smaller frame of a striking conceptual piece.
Their tastes have started to merge. The works of art in this home, the two agree, simply “happen.”
“As a curator, you can’t be a collector,” Christoph says. “You don’t want to have conflict of interest.”
So the two obtain a piece when they meet a promising young artist, or purchase something that strikes them at a benefit auction. Some were gifts, Christoph notes. A mobile in the living room was a gift from donors and patrons at the museum he left in Germany.
Downstairs, books line every shelf in an enormous library, except one shelf that hosts a tiny black cat, who lounges on a soft blanket. She seems at home in her world of weighty tomes, content to purr for anyone who takes time to pat her.
Visitors will find no best-selling thrillers or mysteries on these shelves. Kira picks up “The Radicant,” by Nicolas Bourriud, then “The Forever War,” by Dexter Filkins.
Christoph, who is on the authentication board of the Andy Warhol Foundation and has organized a Warhol exhibit that traveled to several cities, leafs through “Andy Warhol Prints.”
Walking toward the barn, Christoph, who earned both his master’s degree and doctorate in Germany, explains that he was not always sure that his future was as a curator or director of a museum.
“Now he loves it,” Kira says. “He loves it up here, but when he wakes up in the morning, he can’t wait to get into work.”
She laughs and gives her husband an affectionate pat on the arm.
“But he can’t wait to come home, either, right?”
Right.
