An Aspen Mountain home for all seasons

On the curve of Aspen’s Roaring Fork Road is a house so private, you could easily miss it. Yet walk through the yellow front door and into the living room of the elegant stone property and you’re met with natural views that will take your breath away. 

“You can’t see Aspen Mountain and the 26-acre Hallam Lake nature preserve until you enter the house, so there’s a real ‘ah ha’ moment. It’s much more than it appears from the street,” says Steve Farish, a retired interior designer who, together with his brother and sister, inherited this property when their mother passed away a decade ago. 

Immaculate interior design 

His widowed mother had long wanted a holiday home with a protected view and bought a house on the plot in 1977. “She sat on it for about 20 years and that gave her time to think about the design,” says Steve. The immaculate 5,126 sq ft property, which has four spacious bedroom suites, was completed in 2001 in collaboration with the Houston-based decorator Herbert Wells. 

“The house has a very neutral palette, which interplays really well with the gigantic natural setting outside,” Steve explains. The view is best admired with a coffee from the cast-iron table in the living room – in the spring and summer, it’s a sea of glorious greenery where you can spot wildlife ranging from bears to deer, moose to wild turkeys. In winter, it’s a dramatic carpet of white snow. 

Aspen’s activities for mind and body 

Yet Steve’s favourite season is autumn, when the trees turn a brilliant yellow – this is when he goes horseback riding in the forest. Indeed, as well as the skiing for which the area is famous, Aspen offers many outdoor activities, including hiking and biking. 

It’s easy to exercise the mind, too. In addition to the designer shops and excellent restaurants, this cultured, well-heeled place is home to the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Music Festival, founded in 1949 by Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke, who created ‘the Aspen Idea’ and turned this post-mining town into a place where the mind, body and spirit could flourish. The Aspen Ideas Festival now runs each June, featuring top thinkers from around the globe. 

Steve says his family’s house on Roaring Fork Road is the perfect place to take advantage of Aspen without having to drive into it; the siblings, who are now in or approaching their seventies, are selling up so they can buy a holiday home elsewhere.  

“We get wonderful stars because we don’t have any ambient light,” Steve says. “We also have the privilege of watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks from our living room without the crowds, while we can walk a block to the music festival to hear some of the world’s best performers.  

“It’s very tranquil and private here – people who have the means to live any place they want have been drawn to this location.”