<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  David A. Keeps: Why did you go for a modern spin on this mountain getaway? Will Wick: It&amp;#039;s a vacation home in Martis Camp, in a pine forest between Lake Tahoe and the Northstar ski resort, and the owners are a young couple with three kids, so they wanted a casual place. The general aesthetic up there is mountain kitsch, but I grew up in Colorado and have never been a huge fan of hunter green and burgundy, overstuffed chenille furniture, and a bear hook to hang my jacket on. I think a dustier color palette and a contrast between clean shapes and rustic materials is much cooler for the mountains. So what was your inspiration? The house is part of a new development, so I wanted it to be different from the neighbors. I thought we should go the Belgian-farmhouse route. For a number of years, I had been buying antiques in Antwerp and the surrounding farm towns. Going into these gorgeous barns filled with chunky furniture and strange objects, it all looked so fresh and new. How did you pull off the Belgian look? In Tahoe, the floors are usually flagstone or slate with dark grout, or yellow pine. Here, oversize black granite tiles have been sandblasted to look like Belgian bluestone in an ashlar pattern with white grout. The floors add life and energy to a space where the walls are muted. We used cedar bleached and glazed to a beautiful whitewashed finish for the walls, clad all the way to the ceiling. It&amp;#039;s more expensive, but Sheetrock just doesn&amp;#039;t cut it if you want a warm look. Why go pale? In a natural setting, a brightly colored home is jarring, so I created a neutral palette and brought in furniture and art that add interest. I really wanted to keep the tones simple. The wife wanted the La Cornue stove in powder blue, and I had to say: &amp;#039;That&amp;#039;s not happening. It has to be black.&amp;#039; Does every room need a little black? Black does add structure and definition. I even hired a decorative painter to make the windows look like the black iron ones you see in European conservatories. It not only frames the window but also draws your eyes to the scenery outside. There seems to be a direct conversation between indoors and out. In the winter, when the sun is reflecting on the snow, the house feels like a cozy, warm fishbowl. In the summer, it feels shaded and cool. To take advantage of the height of the living room, we installed tall accordion-window walls that open to patios on both sides. When the weather is nice, you can leave the doors open and have twice as much entertaining space, with lounge chairs, a dining table, and a fire pit. The loftlike kitchen is center stage. Why did you go with an open plan? The house wasn&amp;#039;t grand enough to have a separate kitchen. With kids running around, the owners wanted to be able to enjoy cooking and entertaining and still keep an eye on things. So we created two floating islands, which made the space feel huge. On one side, there&amp;#039;s a counter with stools where the grown-ups can have coffee. Above it, we suspended maple cabinets on industrial pipe from the ceiling and put glass fronts on both sides, so you can see through the kitchen to the other side, where there&amp;#039;s a breakfast nook with a banquette for the kids. Clever. The living room feels equally casual \u2014 very much like a ski lodge. You don&amp;#039;t need a great room in every ski house, but there has to be a fantastic space where you can curl up on a deep sofa or a good leather club chair to listen to music and drink wine. And you need a massive coffee table where you can set out food, play games, and put up your feet. The central focus of this room is the fireplace. That&amp;#039;s no understatement: it&amp;#039;s monolithic. How do you keep it from being overbearing? It&amp;#039;s made of dry-stacked stone, which creates a textured pattern, so the mantel had to be substantial but simple. A thick slab of wood makes fireplaces architecturally modern \u2014 as long as you keep the tchotchkes off. Instead of a taxidermy mount, which is o&amp;#039; en found over a fireplace in the mountains, I used an elk head made of driftwood, which adds another focal point and a sense of humor. The cabinets flanking the hearth fit perfectly. What&amp;#039;s your secret? I had them custom made to look like they were crafted in Wyoming &amp;quot;&amp;quot; years ago and then sat outside for six years in the sun, cracking and bleaching and getting rust on the mesh fronts. One of the cabinets has a wet bar, and the other hides the TV. I don&amp;#039;t think television should have a presence in the living room. Are the factory lights and metal tables a nod to the industrial steampunk look? I like the aesthetic. New things generally don&amp;#039;t do anything for me. What I buy is more an homage to the curio store \u2014 like a gurney used as a coffee table \u2014 just weird, old, strange things. I have a seven-foot-tall bass violin case from 1897; it&amp;#039;s solid wood, wrapped in waxed canvas, with cast-iron corners. One of these days, I&amp;#039;m going to turn it into a bar that lights up when you open it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/home-makeovers/a3358/will-wick-interview-0513/>