Bold and Blissful Freestanding Tubs to Find Inspiration

Park City’s Bond Design Company created a rustic-elegant bathroom that adds copper warmth and vintage charm to a 1990s log cabin. The Santorini tub and Avila sink are from Native Trails, and the chandelier is from RH. | Photo: Lindsay Salazar

Sometimes a private room is so beautiful that you just can’t resist showing it off. That’s the case for these splendid bathrooms created by talented designers across the Mountain West. Though bathrooms may be small in size, their importance is vast. As the space where you start and finish each day, the bathroom affects your mood and your well-being. It’s the place where you look yourself in the eye, prepare to enter the world, and finally decompress when the day is done. The star of the show is undoubtedly the bathtub—a welcoming destination at any hour—and today’s freestanding tubs are bold, blissful and better than ever.

Soft Serenity

Photo: Ed Riddell

A great bathroom has the power to touch all of our senses, and this bath designed by Rush Jenkins, principal creative/CEO of Jackson, Wyoming-based WRJ Design, along with team leader Sabrina Schreibeis, is an exquisite example. In a home that merges Mountain Modern and traditional styles, this space looks out over aspen and spruce forests toward the Tetons. Guided by the homeowners’ wishes—”They really wanted to have soft hues to create a serene bathroom,” Jenkins says—the designers tiled the walls with Ann Sacks Mia marble to forge a harmonious connection with the outdoors.

Logan Leachman, of JLF Architects, designed a vanity made of band-sawn white oak and steel that rests on heated limestone flooring, while a Waterworks burnished cast-iron Voltaire tub takes pride of place beside the window. “With a freestanding tub we’re able to place the plumbing and drapes so that the drapes will frame the tub in a beautiful way,” Jenkins says. “It can be a really special, framed, soft, serene moment.” 

ARCHITECTURE – JLF Architects
INTERIOR DESIGN – WRJ Design
CONSTRUCTION – Big-D Signature

Contemporary Clarity

Photo: Kat Alves

The next-best thing to outdoor bathing is a bathroom with floor-to-ceiling windows. Diana Vincent, lead designer of Truckee, California-based High Camp Home, created this nature-embracing bathroom for a new home filled with light. The homeowners enjoy a beautiful Martis Camp setting, backing to the golf course and opening up to pond and mountain views. “The architecture and setting played to a modern rustic Tahoe home with an original, fresh look and incredible indoor-outdoor aesthetic,” Vincent says.

“This contemporary mountain bathroom combines a neutral palette with rustic touches for a light-filled interior that is current but still cozy.” The Thaddeus crème matte porcelain floor tile is from Bedrosians, and Vincent selected a Victoria + Albert Vetralla 2 tub in matte white with a Waterworks tub filler. The designer is a fan of freestanding tubs. “They offer a more luxurious spa-like feel than a conventional built-in tub,” Vincent says. “From a maintenance perspective, they are much easier to clean as well.”

ARCHITECTURE – Walton Architecture + Engineering
INTERIOR DESIGN – High Camp Home
CONSTRUCTION – Lamperti Construction

Cozy Copper

Photo: Lindsay Salazar

When the opportunity came along to remodel an off-grid log cabin in Kamas, Utah, Jennifer Chipman, co-founder and principal designer of Park City-based Bond Design Company, rose to the occasion. “We didn’t want to completely eliminate the cozy log cabin vibes, but we wanted to elevate them,” Chipman says. “This bathroom really emphasizes the use of mixed metal finishes to modernize the heritage of this 1990s log cabin.”

With full-round log walls and mountain views framed by large windows, the space has a natural warmth, burnished by glorious, polished copper Avila sinks and a Santorini bathtub from Native Trails. Chipman likes the rustic-chic mountain style and living finish of hammered copper, and she points out that a freestanding tub can also open up a space. “In this situation it was perfect because the bathtub location was in front of a floor-to-ceiling window,” the designer says. “It acts like a piece of jewelry for the bathroom!”

ARCHITECTURE – Arch Nexus
INTERIOR DESIGN – Bond Design Company
CONSTRUCTION – Magleby Construction

Magnificent Marble

Photo: Ric Stovall

Knockout mountain views inspired the entire design strategy for this Telluride bathroom. “We arranged the bath such that the hillside and cliffs to the northeast can be seen in the reflection in the vanity mirror opposite the freestanding tub, which is positioned in front of a generous picture window,” says Hans Berglund, president of Edwards, Colorado-based Berglund Architects, who worked with principal Stephanie Lord-Johnson on the home’s interiors.

The designers emphasized rich, natural materials, including floor-to-ceiling Crazy Horse marble slabs quarried in nearby Marble, Colorado. “The marble slab’s soft blue-and-gray organic veining conjures a feeling of moving water, adding to the immersive shower experience,” Berglund says. Custom walnut cabinets with a waterfall-edge countertop are lit by Kelly Wearstler Piel Medium Wrapped pendants, and a Signature Hardware Sheba tub embodies sleek simplicity. “Both Stephanie and I like the aesthetic sculptural aspect of a great freestanding tub, as well as how they make the space feel larger as compared to a built-in tub,” Berglund says.

ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIOR DESIGN – Berglund Architects
CONSTRUCTION – RA Nelson

Raw Refinement

Photo: Gibeon Photography

In a home where natural materials reign, it’s no wonder that designer Lisa Tracy, of Bozeman-based Studio H Interiors, embraced an organic modern style to enhance this bathroom’s atmosphere of tranquil comfort. “The homeowners expressed a desire for warm wood tones and white textured tiles,” Tracy explains. “Our approach was to create a raw and refined space by layering organic elements against a backdrop of clean lines and modern simplicity.”

With walls painted in Benjamin Moore’s White Dove, wood flooring by Arrigoni Woods, and custom white oak his-and-hers vanities by Quest Cabinetry matched with Caesarstone quartz countertops and Graff faucets, the calm space is naturally elegant. A nest-like pendant light from Serena & Lily hovers above a Signature Hardware bathtub that’s placed beside the window. “I love freestanding bathtubs mostly for their aesthetic appeal and large diversity of styles,” Tracy says. “They are eye-catching and add a touch of luxury to any bathroom.”

ARCHITECTURE – Studio H Design
INTERIOR DESIGN – Studio H Interiors
CONSTRUCTION – Mako Contracting

As seen in Mountain Living’s September/October 2024 issue.