How Livable Luxury Merges Timeless Beauty with Exquisite Craftsmanship

Homeowners with a museum-quality collection inspired the designers to create a great room focused on a stunning Albert Watson portrait over the fireplace in this contemporary hilltop residence. | Photo: Matthew Millman

If it’s livable luxury you’re after, WRJ Design can show you how it’s done. With nature as their guiding light, Rush Jenkins and Klaus Baer, co-founders of Jackson, Wyoming-based WRJ Design, have built a stellar reputation for interiors that merge timeless beauty with exquisite craftsmanship. Since the pair launched their interior design firm in 2003, it’s grown stronger each year. In 2019, Jenkins and Baer published their first book, Natural Elegance, which showcased their rustic yet refined approach.

In a Utah home, the designers selected Italian bronze Brombal doors and windows to frame landscape views, with a Holly Hunt handblown crystal pendant hanging above a custom bench. | Photo: Roger Davies

Now, the talented duo offer a new book, Natural Luxury, which celebrates 10 recent projects that illustrate WRJ’s evolution. Written with David Foxley, and featuring splendid photography by Roger Davies, Matthew Millman and Eric Piasecki, the eye-catching volume is published by Vendome Press.

Inside, Jenkins and Baer share behind-the-design tales of stunning homes in swoon-worthy locations, ranging from Jackson Hole, Wyoming; to Deer Valley, Utah; Sun Valley, Idaho; and even high above Manhattan. Despite their far-flung settings, they all exemplify the WRJ philosophy.

A landscape by artist Kathryn Lynch hangs on the stone wall of the great room in this home near Jackson, Wyoming. The designers chose cozy fireside seating in subdued shades of blue, brown, cream and gray. | Photo: Roger Davies

Readers won’t find any flashy or fussy trend-chasing in the gorgeous homes that inhabit these pages. “Our goal is to create things that have a timeless sensibility to them,” says Baer.

Wherever their projects take them, Baer and Jenkins draw inspiration from the surrounding environment, whether it’s snow-capped peaks and wildflower-strewn meadows, or a lake, ocean or river flowing outdoors. The designers capture the beauty of the landscape in spaces that promote serenity and harmonize with nature. In the end, each home feels rooted, with a powerful sense of place.

In a bedroom boasting sweeping mountain vistas, the designers emphasized rich textures and calm colors, with a custom headboard upholstered in velvet beneath a photo by Horst P. Horst. | Photo: Matthew Millman

Jenkins and Baer point to a stronger desire for authenticity and meaning since they published their previous book, noting that clients want homes that reflect who they are, with a greater emphasis on comfort and wellness, and a desire for longevity and permanence.

Based on a thorough understanding of each client’s needs, likes, dislikes, aspirations and dreams, the WRJ team creates home interiors that resonate as a personal expression of the client’s life. Emphasizing clean lines and highlighting natural materials including wood and stone, their work balances ruggedness and restraint.

For a spacious terrace with out-of-this-world Teton views, the designers selected luxurious furnishings that allow flexibility when the home is quiet or filled with guests. | Photo: Roger Davies

These homes are meant to be lived in and enjoyed, not just admired. “I think that luxury, at its basic level, is defined as the quality and attention to detail that is created through extraordinary craftsmanship, and thoughtfulness and intention,” Jenkins says.

The designers rely on years of expertise to layer textures, natural finishes and materials that draw people in and appeal to their senses. “If you can create calmness, if you can create a serenity, if you can create an environment where it feels like a sanctuary for people—that physically changes people’s daily experience, and their families’ experience, and guests’ experience,” says Jenkins. “Our greatest gift is to be able to create environments for people that can bring to them a greater sense of peace, and home is all about that.”

At home and surrounded by the glorious Wyoming landscape, Rush Jenkins and Klaus Baer, founding partners of WRJ Design, are accompanied by their adorable pair of Newfoundlands, Wolfgang and Duchess. | Photo: Roger Davies

Jenkins and Baer value the opportunities they’ve had to collaborate with a diverse array of architects, landscape architects, contractors and clients through the years. They continue to travel and learn along the way.

“As creatives, we are constantly exploring the world of design, and the world at large—intentionally bringing back inspiration and folding it into our work,” says Jenkins. “Our future projects will continue to reflect that exploration and discovery, and so too the evolution of our design.” It’s a journey that readers are invited to follow as WRJ Design creates an enduring legacy of natural luxury.

Natural Luxury by Rush Jenkins and Klaus Baer, $75. Vendome Press.

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INTERIOR DESIGN – WRJ Design

As seen in Mountain Living’s July/August 2026 Issue.