Houzz Tour: Rocky Mountain Style in Southern California

Photos by Sheldon Ivester

Home at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple who have adult children and grandchildren
Location: Rancho Santa Fe, California
Size: Five bedrooms, five bathrooms
Designer: Bonnie Bagley Catlin of Signature Designs Kitchen & Bath
Contractor: MC Construction Design-Build

Catlin helped the homeowners reconfigure an oddly angled entry into a more open, welcoming space with an easy flow. Hubbell & Hubbell Architects crafted the new adobe walls. The new layout improves the flow into the great room, which has a vaulted wood ceiling.

“This is a rambling ranch house. We changed the wall structure and the kitchen layout, so we also needed to replace the floors,” she says. She sourced luxury vinyl tile flooring that looks like wood.

The leather bench is located in the entry. The leather brings in the Western vibe while the shape is modern. The wall sconce plays off the geometry of the ceiling beams and adds a warm glow to the space.

Flooring: Midas Touch, Moda Living Collection, Provenza Floors

In the great room, the beautiful wood ceiling sets the tone and gives the homeowners the casual mountain feeling they enjoyed in their Colorado home. Contemporary light fixtures, a black-and-white rug and streamlined metal coffee tables mix in modern touches. “The homeowner had this great idea for creating two sofas that were large enough for the scale of this big room,” Catlin says. “She bought four 6-foot-long sectional pieces and pushed them together to create two 12-foot-long sofas.”

Previously, French doors led out to the pool deck. “I encouraged them to replace those doors with 12-foot stacking doors. They are so California,” Catlin says.

Chandeliers: Dahlia, Hubbardton Forge

The homeowner, a proud member of the Seneca Nation, Turtle Clan, wanted to blend her Colorado high-country western vibe into a California house. “Overall, I’d call this home sophisticated mountain style with Native American influences,” Catlin says.

“We went on a hunt for just the right slab for the fireplace,” the designer says. This one has clean lines and a charcoal-and-white palette that looks right at home in California. But the fact that it’s natural stone also works with the mountain style the homeowners love. The trio of the homeowner’s Native American portraits puts her heritage front and center.

Catlin created a toasty reading area by adding two armchairs with floor lamps next to the fireplace. The chairs are black and bronze with organic fabric seats.

Catlin placed the TV with a console underneath at the other end of the great room. The console offers the organic texture of shells and a concentric circle pattern.

“The old kitchen was a drab gray-green, it had an odd, large U-shaped island, and the fridge was front and center,” Catlin says. She removed an extra door along the exterior wall to create a more appropriate spot for the fridge. “After my client saw the black metal doors I found for the great room, she wanted to use the same style for the windows and doors in here,” the designer says.

Catlin got rid of the odd U-shaped island and replaced it with a large rectilinear one that offers seating on two sides. It also houses a microwave and lots of storage. To the left is a breakfast area that also serves as the dining room. A branch-like chandelier, a wood-paneled accent wall and a chunky rectilinear table give the space sophisticated mountain style.

Island light fixture: AC7008BG Chandelier, Grappolo; breakfast nook light: Sierra Chandelier, Troy Lighting

The perimeter cabinets are painted, while the island cabinetry is textured laminate. The countertops are quartzite, a natural stone.

The counter stools, which the homeowner found online, were a great chance to add some personality and pizazz to the kitchen. Knowing her client had a penchant for bold patterns, Catlin consulted with her on fabrics and had the stools reupholstered in an eye-catching fabric from Kravet.

“There had been a pantry at the end of this space before. But this area needed a little personality of its own,” Catlin says. She replaced the pantry with cabinets that have beautiful metal grilles. “This is a great spot for storing overflow dishes and glasses. It’s easy to access.” she says. A faucet with a knurled metal detail on the spout plays off the warm metal of the grilles.

The opening on the left leads to an extensive butler’s pantry.

Cabinets: Bellmont Cabinet

The butler’s pantry is long and divided into several spaces. The tile floor delineates it from the rest of the kitchen while uniting the different sections. This section closest to the kitchen includes a coffee station and beverage fridge. The backsplash in the pantry is a black marble tile with a brass inlay, and the counters are Black Van Gogh granite with a leathered finish.

The sliding glass barn door on the right opens to the laundry room.

The last portion of the butler’s pantry includes a tall wine cooler and pantry storage. The homeowner also wanted to tuck a printer back here.

This porch is located off the kitchen. Catlin gave it new windows and doors, and she and her client furnished it with cushy upholstery and colors and patterns that referenced the American West.

While the wife was conducting this design adventure, she kept her husband in mind. Knowing he wanted a pool table room, she decided to repurpose the previous formal dining room and use the breakfast nook for dining.

“The pool table is walnut and is quite modern-looking,” Catlin says. She helped source large-scale pendants for good billiard lighting that suited the home’s style. The rug brings in an organic stone-like veining pattern, and the alcove is papered in Succulentus.

A hallway off the great room leads to the homeowners’ bedroom suite. The black-and-cream inlay console cabinet was just the right fit for the homeowner’s bold and organic aesthetic preferences. The homeowner uses the black metal cabinets to display favorite things, including books, artwork and, along the bottom, a Western boot collection.

The seating area is a nice place where the couple can catch up on each other’s day and read in the evening. The drapery fabric’s bold glam take on camouflage had caught the homeowner’s eye, and Catlin had them custom-made for the space.

The mix of textures, the vaulted wood ceiling and the canopy bed make the large bedroom feel cozy and inviting. Note how the bed suits the scale of the space — a canopy or four-poster bed is a good choice for a bedroom with high ceilings.

The primary suite has two bathrooms. “Her bathroom is super bold, just the way she likes it,” Catlin says. While the existing bathroom did not have a shower, she didn’t have to change the layout much, which saved on the budget. The windows and doors are new, and the door leads directly to an outdoor spa area.

The countertops are the same Black Van Gogh granite countertops Catlin used in the butler’s pantry. “The honed, leathered finish gives them a more natural look,” she says.

Catlin kept the tub in the same spot but created a wet room area next to it for the shower. She used a partial wet room strategy, placing the shower and tub in the same area. The floor slopes toward the linear drain on the right.

The glass divider seen here prevents water from splashing out beyond the wet room area. “This glass panel was found online, it’s not custom,” says Catlin. “We were resourceful wherever we could be so that we could splurge where it really counted.”

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The separate water closet space was a chance to go all-out with a graphic wallpaper that adds gold to the black-and-white palette. Catlin repeated this color combination throughout the house, such as on the great room’s fireside chairs, the butler’s pantry backsplash and the bedroom drapes.

The couple love to host their adult children and their grandchildren for family gatherings, so they wanted the guest bedrooms to feel cozy and comfortable. Nightstands with drawers offer storage for clothing. The leather bench, wood bed and blue jeans-inspired colors on the pillows bring in the Western vibe.

In the guest bath, simple wall tiles form an eye-catching pattern. “My client had seen this tile pattern online. We used black grout around the edging,” Catlin says.