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Sun Valley Home and Design / Fall 2009 / Inside Angle

Inside Angle

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For a small community, ours is home to a disproportionate number of innovative architects and builders. Their work determines the spaces where we sleep, work and celebrate the mountain life. They also have opinions. We found a few who were willing to talk about the hard things: local development, family secrets and the future of the Valley.
 

What brought you to the Valley?
A ’64 Chevy towing a four-by-eight trailer. It was 1980, and our three-month-old son rode with us all the way from Laguna Beach, California.
 

Favorite Sun Valley landmark
The Reinheimer Ranch barn. When I’m driving into town and I see that white barn, I know that I’m in Ketchum. It’s the building that welcomes me to town.
 

Most important building project on the horizon
The hotels will have a huge impact on the community. Ketchum needs a shot in the arm, and they are a part of it. And, of course, I’m hoping for some fabulous architecture.
 

Opinion that can silence a dinner party
Friedman Memorial Airport absolutely has to move, and it’s going to be very good for the Valley’s economy when it does. We are going to get double the visitors when we get a reliable, all-weather airport. There are so many good, synergistic things that will happen when it moves. It’s a shame we don’t have unanimous support for it, but at some point these people will quit wringing their hands and stomping their feet. One of these days, the community is going to get behind a new airport.
 

What do you do when you’re not working?
I like to cook—it’s a lot like building except you get to eat it at the end.
 

Left or Right?
I was a delegate for Barack Obama at the Idaho Democratic Convention.

 

Biggest success
Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church. It is a public building that has and will be part of many people’s lives now and into the future.
 

Local project you are most proud of
That’s kind of like asking which one of my children is my favorite.
 

Controversial local opinion
The airport. ’Nuf said.
 

What’s up with housing?
Several types of housing existed when I moved here almost forty years ago. We shouldn’t focus on just home ownership, but on all kinds of housing solutions, including rental housing, guest houses, etc.
 

Favorite local landmark
The Sun Valley Lodge. It’s a grand building with a timeless quality. Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed it shortly after he designed many of the National Park lodges.

His use of stained, board-formed concrete impressed me so much that, thirty years ago, I designed and built my own A.I.A. award-winning home using the same technique along the Big Wood River.
 

Do you have a secret?
I’m an Idaho native. I grew up in Mountain Home. It was a lot like growing up in the Wood River Valley—a small, safe place to grow up. >>>