Winter's best… NEWSLETTER / February 2026 KIND WORDS: “It was a dream working with you and your team. Looking forward to next time!” – Christy Nielson, Shelter Editor, Cowgirl 
SECRET SAUCE One-of-a-kind design elements are “the secret sauce” that makes the kitchens spotlighted in Mountain Living’s new March/April issue special, writes the magazine, calling the kitchen shown, designed by Jacobs + Interiors owner and principal designer Yvonne Jacobs, a “little jewel box” with its “sleek, uncluttered look” and “creamy slabs of gold-veined quartzite.” Out of four culinary spaces highlighted by ML, two are by Yvonne – the second a rustic-mod design in a Beaver Creek townhome that pairs a “burnished barnwood” wall with dual stone-topped islands. Both kitchens are part of larger complete-transformation Vail remodels by Jacobs + Interiors – the “jewel box” in a home also featured as “Ski Country Chic” (p. 100) in the winter issue of Vail Valley magazine. (Photo: Dominique Taylor) 
SEEING RED A JLF Architects-designed project “is a love letter to Montana’s ranching history: a series of homestead-inspired ‘outbuildings’ linked by striking steel and glass connectors,” writes Cowgirl magazine, which features the Gallatin Valley home in its new March/April issue (look for actress Kayla Wallace from Paramount+ series “Landman” on the cover). A “visual anchor” of the property, the two-story barn, pictured, also serves as an emotional touchstone for the homeowner, who kept returning to the memory of a red barn in early discussions with JLF. "[He] would get this smile on his face when he talked about a red barn," JLF's Ashley Sullivan tells Cowgirl. JLF delivered, finding and reclaiming character-rich barnwood, still stained with red, to create the new-old structure. (Photo: Audrey Hall) 
LET IT SNOW Masters of the pivot, Antlers at Vail hotel countered sparse early-season snowfall with a “Snow Stake Spectacular” deal that offers a percentage point discount over their best available lodging rate for every inch of snow showing on the mid-Vail snow stake at 7 a.m. any given morning. Lately the white stuff has been falling, with Antlers guests reaping Mother Nature’s rewards. Meanwhile, SKI magazine’s “Skier's Guide to Vail Lodging, and Where to Find the Best Deals” names the Antlers its favorite for families, noting its “generously sized” condominiums with full kitchens. Also generous, writes SKI, are the family-friendly amenities, including “a heated outdoor pool nestled on the banks of Gore Creek, and two hot tubs, including one oversized; onsite ski rentals; bunk rooms in select accommodations; and a great location 150 yards from the EagleBahn gondola, so no schlepping required.” PR TIP OF THE MONTH Why We Love Print "In the classic comedy Ghostbusters (1984), newly hired secretary Janice raises the subject of reading, while idly flipping through the pages of a magazine,” begins a blog post from Swinburne University of Technology. “The scientist Egon Spengler responds with a brusque dismissal: ‘print is dead.’” Those words now seem prescient, anticipating the recent decades of struggle for magazines (and books) as the powers that be, convinced that digital options would make hard copy reading obsolete, dramatically cut funding and staffing for analog media. As a result, print magazines foundered, but, far from disappearing, “now, strangely, beautifully, against everything we were told would happen, print is not only back – it’s culturally ascendant again,” writes Huck magazine in the article Touch Paper. “The most recent readership data show that magazines of all kinds (print + digital) reached 223.6 million Americans in 2023, with 87% of US adults having read one in the past six months.” In the article, the founder of In Real Life Media, goes on to write, “If you think print is ‘coming back,’ you’re missing the point. It’s not returning to what it was. It’s becoming what it always should have been. The next generation of magazines won’t be copycat versions of the legacy publishers that cheapened their own products. They’ll be built by founders who respect editorial craft, who understand audience connection, who design for attention rather than algorithms … They won’t dilute their point of view to chase mass reach. They’ll build smaller, deeper, more loyal communities. And they’ll integrate print with digital, not by mimicking it, but by extending it.” This is exactly what we’ve seen (and written about here before): how niche-audience-targeted publications like Mountain Living, LUXE Colorado + the Rockies, Big Sky Journal and Western Art & Architecture continue to grow thicker, building brand loyalty and prospering. And Mountain Living and LUXE do a particularly good of using their websites to present fresh content that amplifies and expands on what their readers already love and trust about their editorial brands. For our design clients, digital coverage – especially on design-and-lifestyle mega-platforms that are highly ranked by Google like The Spruce – are important and necessary for SEO. But it is the print pages that people linger over, leave on the coffee table to revisit, maybe tear pages out of for an IRL file. And sometimes, as the couple did in the recent Mountain Living cover story about a JLF Architects/WRJ Design project, they bring those special pages in to a designer to help them share their vision. |
