TAKE FIVE WRJ Design has just accepted an unprecedented fifth Home of the Year win in a decade from Mountain Living, featured in the November/December issue’s cover story, which calls the project “unforgettable.” A look back over the past 10 years – WRJ’s first win was in 2016 – chronicles the firm’s evolution, as well as how much their inspired-by-nature philosophy and ability to combine rustic, regional and handcrafted elements with the chic, bespoke and contemporary has shaped the current vision of refined alpine style. Always top-of-mind in their collaborative process – which also includes, for this project, Design Associates Architects, Wilkinson-Montesano Builders, and landscape architects Agrostis, Inc. – is the client, who, for this HOTY winner, tells ML, “Luckily for us, our designers are magicians.” (PHOTO: Roger Davies)

SHOP TALK Jeremiah Young’s career “reads like that rare case of undeniable destiny,” writes Kaitlin Menza in her Business of Home “Shop Talk” column, “How this Montana retailer acquired the business of his teenage dreams.” She recounts the day in 2010 that Jeremiah discovered that the Red Lodge store and interior design business Kibler & Kirch, which he’d fallen in love with as a teenage visitor, was for sale – and bought it. Jeremiah describes in the Q&A his business journey, including the tough decision to close the original shop, taking time “to build this thing out and do something really thoughtful,” and finally opening the grand, over 10,000-square-foot, impeccable historical renovation that’s now home to his Billings home store. Asked why add retail, given the success of Kibler & Kirch’s interior design arm, Jeremiah says, “Well, I’ve always believed in brick-and-mortar.”.

TASTE OF BAVARIA It took electric heaters and lots of tenting to keep the winter work on track for a Jacobs + Interiors remodel that included ripping the back off a slopeside late-1990s Bachelor Gulch, Colorado, home to better connect to its aspen grove site. Yvonne Jacobs’ Real West-meets-Bavarian Chic interiors took an art-forward approach for the couple (the wife is an artist) and earned a Mountain Living feature as a “thoughtful renovation." “The logs were incredible,” Yvonne says. “We stripped away everything that distracted from them.” And when time came to keep or lose the existing kitchen’s cracked and worn hand-painted cabinetry (imported from Austria and with real bone hardware), the decision was made to keep and improve, hiring an artist to restore the doors’ original woodland scenes. (PHOTO: Eric Lucero)