The Re-Imagining of Ridge Road House: A Modern Mountain Masterpiece
Written By Dylan Ochala
Tectonic headed to the scenic mountain town of Nederland, Colorado for a whole home remodel of a stunning mid-century modern estate set on Ridge Road. Designed by Boulder’s famed architect Hobart D. Wagener in 1968, the hexagonal-shaped home was built as a summer oasis and not as a year-round residence. What we love about a remodel are the unexpected challenges that demand creative solutions. Due to minimal insulation in the walls, a leaky roof, and consistent drafts, the project required us to gut the full interior and bring the home to a higher standard.
With Ridge Road House, we created a cohesive design with significant structural changes—all without compromising the original open concept plan.
Neutral whites, stately alderwood beams, a ceiling-height stone fireplace, and abundant natural light paint a picture of pristine beauty in this modern, mid-century mountain estate. Transformed from an outdated summer home into a year-round and lifelong sanctuary for the owners, Ridge Road House is a testament to what a modern home custom remodel in Colorado can evolve into.
Engineering Ingenuity
At Tectonic Design Build, we take a holistic approach to your modern home remodel to ensure that your vision is realized without compromise. For this remodel, our design team worked with structural engineers to create a home that was aesthetically aligned with the complex engineering requirements. Our biggest challenge was reinforcing the southwest-facing walls of the home that were exposed to 100-mile-an-hour winds causing the wall to flex with each storm.
We did this by removing the 20-foot floor-to-ceiling undersized posts and installing columns that were then wrapped in alderwood, a high-quality hardwood, to match the rest of the home trim package and bring warmth to the mid-century aesthetic. In the basement, we removed a large structural wall and put in a 30-foot steel beam, also wrapped in alderwood. This created a cohesive, 360-concept floor plan, which we topped off with new floor-to-ceiling Anderson windows to fuse the natural landscape with the home environment. Taken together, these changes honored the home’s original design elements and architectural features. As custom home builders in Colorado, we prioritize thoughtful collaboration across our team of experts to allow for seamless communication from design to execution.
Take a video tour with me through Ridge Road.
Elevating the Home’s Energy Efficiency
At Tectonic Design Build, our modern home remodeling projects focus on aesthetics and overall design while always taking into consideration the health and efficiency of the space. Whether it’s a kitchen renovation or a whole home remodel in Boulder, we ask the same questions for every project:
How do we improve the indoor air quality, the comfort of the space, and the performance of the home while honoring the surrounding environment through design choices?
Through Passive House principles, we have a clear path of success to achieve these.
COMFORT
At Ridge Road House, we upgraded the client’s standard furnace to a high-efficiency Vitocrossal boiler to provide a more reliable and efficient heating performance throughout the home. We also utilized Warmboard to deliver hydronic radiant in-floor heating. This type of heating is more interactive with the body and allows you to directly absorb the heat versus a typical forced air system that heats unevenly and spreads dust. In addition, the home experience is instantly elevated with this silent, clean, and exquisitely comfortable design.
AIR QUALITY
Bringing fresh filtered air into the home's interior is crucial for its inhabitants' health. We installed multiple Panasonic energy recovery ventilators throughout Ridge Road House to create a more balanced ventilation system that replaces stale air with the optimal supply of fresh air from the outdoors. With the impressive views and tonic of the wild just steps from the home, it is only right to utilize and integrate the fresh mountain air.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
These optimized systems listed above reveal outstanding results when it comes to energy efficiency for modern home remodels. In addition, we improved the air tightness and thermal insulation to achieve a well-insulated structure that is critical to achieving a high-performance home. At Ridge Road House, we increased the air tightness by a factor of 500%, while the insulation of the walls increased by 95% and the ceiling insulation increased by 350%. In addition to providing the client with a cozy home all winter long, their propane bill has dropped by 40% and their electricity bill during the coldest months has never gone over $30.
Choose a Design Build Firm for Your Next Remodel
Tectonic’s approach to every custom project is built on communication and collaboration. Our in-house team handles everything from design and permits to construction and final finishes, allowing for an integrated process that honors your vision (and your budget). When it comes to more technical and structural challenges for your home remodel in Boulder, it is especially important to work with a design build firm versus the traditional construction company.
In a design-bid-build process, there can easily be oversights or a compromised design caused by the fragmented teams of engineers, designers, and architects. You can expect us to consider each project with an acute awareness of detail so that the aesthetic of your space beautifully blends with the structural requirements of the remodel. We look forward to working with you on your next Colorado remodel to show you what sustainable luxury looks like in 2024.
