A Rustic Mash-Up

Photo by Povy Kendall Atchison

Once, perhaps inspired by the log cabins and “soddies” built on the prairies as pioneers settled the West and often depicted in Westerns, the term “rustic” conjured images of hand-hewn logs, river-rock fireplaces, sod roofs. Homes that looked like national park lodges.  

Cover photo by James Ray Spahn

Today, these materials are still found in rustic homes—you’ll find them in many of the homes featured in the September/October 2018 Rustic Issue—but there’s a wider interpretation of what rustic means. Think of it as a rustic mash-up, rougher natural elements with sleeker modern and European furnishings combined in surprising fresh ways.

Photo by James Ray Spahn

The 2018 Rustic Issue explores a rustic retreat built near Buena Vista, Colorado, created from salvaged historic cabins and a guesthouse on a ranch near Gunnison designed to blend in with the property’s outbuildings. In Jackson, Wyoming, a home takes its rustic inspiration from a Swiss chalet, and a Yellowstone Club home combines rugged pieces with a more sophisticated East Coast aesthetic. In Sun Valley, Idaho, a home feels like a mountain house in materials—in a modern, uncluttered design.

Photo by Carol Waller

In our “Destination” department, we visit Sun Valley, where Ernest Hemingway lived with his wife Mary. He was especially fond of the fall, and our story spotlights the town during the months of September and October.

Guests visiting Sun Valley must check out the Hemingway Memorial near Trail Creek. The words on the memorial are from a eulogy he wrote for a friend killed in a hunting accident: “Best of all he loved the fall, the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods, leaves floating on the trout streams and above the hills, the high blue windless skies.”