Jackson, Wyoming, USA
Inspired by the humble vernacular residences of nearby Mormon Row—a late-frontier Wyoming settlement built by members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints—Messana O’Rorke, Ankeny Architecture and Design, and Agrostis’ design straddles the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, resolving the potentially contradictory demands of contextual sensitivity and contemporary brio.
The Junegrass House project has been awarded a 2023 Future House Award by Global Design News and The Chicago Athenaeum Museum for Architecture and Design and a 2022 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
To lighten the visual impact of the residence, the designers broke the structure down into four volumes connected by see-through glass bridges that buoy the impression of independent pavilions arrayed in a line.
Named Junegrass House, this residence is variously clad in stained cedar and stone, again accentuating the individual identities of the pavilions.
In the central volume, which accommodates the living room, dining area, and kitchen, two walls feature massive pocketing glass doors that, in favorable weather, open the interior to a generous embrace of the surrounding land and views.
At the front of the house, a fire pit set beside a reflecting pool provides the ideal spot to appreciate the glow of the setting sun reflected on the mountains.
On the opposite side, a courtyard created by the staggering of the pavilions contains an outdoor kitchen and dining table.
The interior of the house is crisply detailed, with wide-plank French oak floors and vertical elevations of wire-brushed oak in a warm gray stain.
The juxtaposition of the two interior materials works in tandem with the cedar and stone combination on the exterior to lend an alternating rhythm to the distilled composition.
Neither hopelessly nostalgic nor aggressively contemporary, the house rests on the land with probity and grace, bridging the past and present life of the American West.
Project: Junegrass House
Architects: Messana O’Rorke
Lead Architects: Brian Messana and Toby O’Rorke
Design Team: Brian Messana, Toby O’Rorke, Viktor Nassli and Juan Espinosa Associate Architects: Ankeny Architecture and Design
Landscape Architect: Agrostis, Inc.
Client: Mark and Ann Messana
Contractor: UC Group
Photographers: Tuck Fauntleroy