The Summit Estate

In the home’s entryway, Shea and the design team took extra care to ensure the space didn’t offer a cold welcome, opting to cover large swaths of drywall with visually interesting and textural stone and raw timber. To add in a clear flow, a round table sits in the middle of the space, with additional seating around the edges of the room. The entryway’s art choices are your first introduction to the client’s fun aesthetic and the leeway they gave to the design team in crafting a one-of-a-kind home.  

“Believe it or not, this is not the only bar in the home,” explains Shea in the webisode below. The Summit Estate is a home tailor-made for hosting. The first bar you encounter when entering the home is color-blocked in a velvety brown and a teal-tinged blue/black, opening up into the home’s main living space for easy entertaining.  

The living room provided a unique challenge in terms of layout. In addition to showcasing, and not distracting from, the view, seating needed to be arranged around the fireplace and in a way that encouraged conversation. It also needed to have an easy flow to the two doorways leading to the kitchen and dining room. Once nailing that down, Shea and the design team presented a mood board to the clients chock full of sophisticated pieces that had a bit of an edge—a curved sofa in plaid, armchairs with sloped arm shapes, and a coffee table with chunky, organic legs. “When we’re designing these custom homes for clients, it’s really awesome to get to a place where we understand their aesthetic enough where we can present something that we know they’re going to be excited about, and we’re also going to be able to deliver on the Studio McGee style that they came to us for,” Shea explains.    

Like in most spaces, there’s one piece or color that kicks off the rest of the design. In The Summit Estate’s kitchen, that defining element was the range. “The client wanted something that would make a statement,” Shea explains. A dark green Lacanche range that blended seamlessly with the cabinets was the answer. On top, a plaster range hood draws the eye to the ceiling while a wood band ties the adjoining exposed shelves together.

In order to balance out an uncentered range, Shea designed the pantry door to disappear into the cabinetry, providing a little bit of whimsy to the space. The soapstone counters on the kitchen’s island are a dramatic touch, anchoring six barstools for ample seating.  

A custom size of McGee & Co.’s Orville Dining Table anchors the dining room, long enough for 12 people to sit around it. On the side closest to the line of counter stools, Shea and the design team opted out of another row of chairs and instead brought in upholstered benches to soften the space. “You get a break in the height,” Shea explains.

A beautiful wooden hutch holds court at the foot of the table, each shelf styled with various kitchen and dining accessories.

“I love this primary suite because I think it’s a great example of how to take modern design and make it feel classic,” Shea says of the primary suite. Papering all of the bedroom’s walls is a dark charcoal grasscloth, with wood beams on the ceiling and a sophisticated marble fireplace surround.

A dark wood, four-poster bed anchors the room while Shea and the design team arranged an assortment of furniture around it that had some sort of interesting detail. “Each selection is interesting, there’s not a single piece in this space that isn’t a little bit funky,” Shea adds.

The bedroom’s ensuite bathroom features an element that we don’t commonly do. “There is a green stain on the vanity,” Shea explains. “It allowed us to show the wood grain and for a mountain home that felt really appropriate.” Unlacquered brass fixtures throughout are already starting to gather a beautiful patina that will only get better as it ages.

“This is my favorite guest bedroom in the house,” Shea says of the space bathed in sunlight from floor-to-ceiling windows and painted in a crisp, sophisticated brown, Coriander Seed by Benjamin Moore. “It’s an unusual color but its still neutral, and it speaks to the mountain landscape.”

This moody mountain office is wrapped all the way around in a dark-stained wood, herringbone of the floor and a vertical paneling on the walls and ceiling. One unique feature of the space is how the wood paneling extends beyond the steel frame windows into the exterior of the home. On display around the room, including the furniture, is a variety of eclectic pieces—a plaid-covered settee, vintage golf clubs, and a worn football.  

Like in all luxury mountain homes, a mudroom is important. This one is special with its rich, wheat tones on the wall (Rattan by Benjamin Moore). The same wood tones found elsewhere in the home are carried into the laundry room, this time with a more rough-hewn application to coincide with the utilitarian nature of the two spaces.

Behind a set of steel doors sit a private wine room perfect for extensive bottle storage, and next door is the home’s second bar. Blue-toned Zellige tiles run up the back of the bar, fronted in color-matched wood shelves and a brass rail.  

The hangout space is deceiving because it looks nothing like a basement (which it is) and is equipped with a shuffleboard table, pool table, and a living space perfect for casual gatherings with a drink in hand. “I think everything about this space says ‘modern mountain home,’” says Shea.  

“Our client really wanted bold wallpaper,” Shea explains of the fun choice made in one of the home’s powder bathrooms. Its small-scale pattern makes a big impact against the rest of the room’s wood paneling.    

“The bunk room was the perfect opportunity to go big with a bold pattern on the wall,” explains Shea. The bunkbeds are painted in Dark Pewter by Benjamin Moore with the surrounding walls papered in MORPH by Quercus & Co. “When we design a bunk room, we look at the space plan we have to work with,” Shea notes. “When we have enough depth, it’s nice to be able to turn the bottom bunks perpendicular to the ones above because we can get a nightstand between the beds below,” allowing for more livable space in a room meant to house a lot of people.

The bunk bathroom features a long, trough sink with more subdued colors and patterns. Minimizing these elements lets the bathrooms luxurious materials shine.