A Modern Western Park City Home Tour | Tricia P.

When Mark and I built our Promontory house — Mark having been part of the development team there, this was a project we'd been mentally drafting for years — I was very clear about what I did not want it to be. I did not want a Disney-mountain-lodge house. I did not want a giant antler chandelier hanging over a great room with a moose head and a fake fireplace. I did not want a house that looked like it was costumed for the part of "Western mountain home."

What I wanted was Modern Western: warm Western texture, modern lines, restraint. Reclaimed wood, plastered walls, leather-and-wool, one (subtle) antler piece, and a layout that makes sense for a family that actually lives in the house. I worked with a Park City interior designer named Jenna who shares my fundamental belief that Western design should be subtractive, not additive. Here's the room-by-room.

great room modern western — Our Promontory great room. Mark and I argued over the chandelier for six months. He won.

The bones

The Promontory house is a 4,800-square-foot timber-frame on a downhill lot with views east toward the Uintas. The architect built around a central great room with reclaimed Douglas fir beams, walls in a hand-troweled lime plaster (warm white, not stark), and wide-plank white oak floors. Those three materials — reclaimed wood, plaster, white oak — are the spine of the whole house.

What we did not do: drywall painted brown, fake-rustic stained pine, or any tongue-and-groove ceilings. The texture comes from real materials, not surface treatments.

modern western dining — Live-edge dining table, leather chairs, Pendleton runner. The Park City starter kit, executed correctly.

The great room

The great room is the showroom of the Modern Western thesis. It contains:

A long, deep leather sectional in a chocolate-cognac (we ordered through Restoration Hardware and reupholstered the cushions in a heavier hide a year in — RH leather is fine but not great).
A pair of vintage Pendleton chimayo blankets thrown over the sectional arms — these are not from the new Pendleton catalog, these are vintage from a dealer in Santa Fe.
A long custom coffee table in reclaimed wormy chestnut from a barn in Pennsylvania, sourced through Lawless.
A leather-and-iron club chair I bought at J.W. Allen & Sons in Heber — yes, the fishing store; their furniture buy is unexpectedly good. (See my home-decor shopping post.)
One subtle antler chandelier — not a giant rack, but a smaller cluster of shed mule deer antlers, custom from a Wyoming maker. Hung at the right height. It reads texture, not theme park.
A wall of bookshelves in steel and reclaimed wood, custom-built locally.

The rule in this room: every Western piece is real. No fake antlers. No reproductions. No pieces that signal Western — pieces that are Western.

mountain home mudroom — Mudroom is non-negotiable. Two kids, three sports, four seasons.

The kitchen

The kitchen is the most modern room in the house. Honed black soapstone counters, plain-sawn white oak cabinets (no glaze, no distressing — just oak), a six-burner Wolf range, and unlacquered brass hardware that has aged beautifully over five years. The only Western element in the kitchen is a single piece of art over the breakfast nook — a small contemporary oil from Kearns McCarthey gallery on Main Street.

The Modern Western lesson here: not every room needs to be Western. The Western runs through the spine of the house and shows up most loudly in the great room and the entryway. The kitchen earns its restraint.

The entryway and mudroom

The entryway is where I get to be the most fun. A long iron-and-leather bench (from Solitudes in PC), a row of cast-iron hooks for hats (yes, this is partly a Kemo Sabe storage solution), a vintage Navajo rug runner, and a pair of antique iron candlesticks on a reclaimed-wood console.

The mudroom — for the dog, the ski boots, the riding boots, the daily mess — is plain plaster, white oak, and a hard-working tile floor. No Western treatment in the mudroom; it has a job to do.

mountain modern home exterior — Standing-seam metal roof, dark stained cedar, big windows. Modern Western exterior, Promontory-style.

The primary bedroom

Plaster walls in a deeper warm white, white oak floor, a custom upholstered bed in a heavy oat linen, a vintage Pendleton blanket folded at the foot, a pair of Lulu and Georgia bedside lamps in unlacquered brass, and one piece of art on the wall — a black-and-white photograph of a horse from a Wyoming photographer I commissioned. Restrained. Not a hotel-room version of Western.

stone fireplace interior — Master fireplace stack runs floor to ceiling. The mason was booked 14 months out — worth it.

The kids' rooms

Maddie's room is more boho-Modern-Western: a fringed leather wall hanging from Olive & Tweed, a Lulu and Georgia rug, vintage Pendleton pillows, a desk in reclaimed wood. Jax's room is austere by his choice — gray plaster, blackout curtains, a single oil painting from a friend. He is a film kid; he wants the room dark.

The in-town house

We also keep an "in-town" house in the Park City School District zone — a smaller historic house we bought when the kids were younger, kept after we built Promontory because the kids wanted to stay in PCSD. It's the opposite design language: white plaster everywhere, painted Victorian moldings (kept original), no beams, very minimal Western. The Modern Western shows up in three pieces — a vintage Pendleton bench at the entry, a horse photograph in the hall, and a single Burns Cowboy Shop tooled-leather chair we never moved out.

The lesson there: Modern Western is not a uniform you apply to every house. It can be the spine of one house and a quiet accent in another.

western style reading nook — Reading nook off the kitchen — sheepskin throw, leather chair, an actual book.

The designer

I worked with Jenna at Jenna McKee Interiors in Park City — small firm, deeply Modern Western, completely undictatorial. She'll source vintage with you, take you to Round Top in Texas (we did one trip together; I came home with a U-Haul, a story for another post), and tell you no when you're about to make a mistake.

Where I sourced

J.W. Allen & Sons (Heber) — leather club chairs, the unexpected stop.
Solitudes (Park City) — iron-and-leather furniture, accents.
Lawless — coffee table, side tables.
Lulu and Georgia — rugs, lighting, pillows (the fill-in pieces).
Round Top antique fair (Texas) — vintage trunks, the entryway console, a number of one-of-one finds.
Kimball Junction antique mall — smaller vintage finds, the Navajo rug.
Kearns McCarthey gallery — art.

The thing I tell anyone designing a Modern Western house in Park City: be subtractive. The Western pieces should be real. The non-Western rooms should be allowed to not be Western. And the antler chandelier, if you have one, should be small enough that no one comments on it. Twenty-plus years here and I am still refining. That's the fun part.