THE EVOLUTION OF RUSTIC

The September/October “Rustic issue” of Mountain Living remains the magazine’s biggest and most popular of the year, but the look of the homes inside has changed dramatically over the past decade. “I’ve watched as the rustic form has expanded and evolved from log-and-chink cabins to modern interpretations that use logs, barnwood, stone and even sod—but in new ways,” writes Darla Worden in her editor’s letter introducing the issue, adding, “In this issue’s Architecture department, we ask three esteemed architects about their definition of rustic today.” Of course, one of those experts is JLF Architects own founder emeritus, Paul Bertelli, weighing in on the historical roots of the legacy homes JLF is designing and building today for the article “The Evolution of Rustic.”

Photos: Lucy Call

True to the firm’s rustic beginnings, and as innovators in the use of reclaimed antique wood and stone for nearly 50 years, JLF is always happy to examine the “staying power” of rustic architecture while embracing the seismic shift of homeowners’ changing lifestyle needs and technological advances. The concept of uniting heritage materials with modern living has reimagined rustic, creating a distinctive new best-of-both-worlds architectural movement in the mountains and beyond. Mountain Living pictured our Park City Modern project, above, to help illustrate rustic reimagined. The dining room’s NanaWalls – glass panels that can fully open to the outdoors – are paired with rugged stacked fieldstone. “One enhances the other. The contemporary reinforces the power of the rustic and vice versa,” Bertelli tells the magazine.

Photos: Laura Resen

“The first cabins were built out of poverty,” Bertelli explains. “People would hand hew a log, frame it up and make a shelter. Trees and very unsophisticated masonry – these were the basics of rustic.”  JLF continues to honor those basics, bringing character and authenticity to modern homes, working in design-build partnership with Big-D Signature to retain Old World hands-on craftsmanship and source ancient materials that imbue legacy homes with a clear sense of place within the landscape and regional history. Simultaneously, we embrace up-to-the-minute technology that allows for amazing expanses of glass, soaring interior spaces and an extraordinary indoor-outdoor connection, as in the Shoot for the Stars project, above.

Photos: Audrey Hall

As we reveal in our book, Foundations, “We don’t use salvaged materials as ornaments in our designs. A stone wall isn’t a veneer of rocks, but a wall made of hand-selected stones stacked to be structurally sound.” At the same time, “We utilize state-of-the-art technology, engineering and techniques that would have been inconceivable in the last hundred years. We embrace innovation.” That philosophy is on display in the Montana Handcrafted project, above, where a disassembled and restacked antique log cabin makes a destination experience of the primary bedroom, and some original white paint still clings to the exterior’s vertical barnwood siding, one of many subtle-yet-significant details contributing to the project’s timeless, handcrafted character. Or, as Bertelli tells Mountain Living, “Rustic architecture will always be tied to its past, but it’s about reimagining those elements in a way that respects their origins while making them relevant for today’s world.”