Credit that feat to the vision of Devin O’Neill of O’Neill Rose Architects in Brooklyn, New York — assisted by senior staffer Ali Ward and project manager Hong Bae Yang — in collaboration with Bozeman, Montana-based OSM Construction and its team headed by principal Mark Stuart, project manager Kyle Surratt, and site supervisor Justin Bleau. The design began with the clients’ request for a Mountain West home that would “have a relationship with the site that made you want to get out and explore,” O’Neill says. “They wanted a home that provided a place where you could rest, regain your strength, and enjoy yourself at the end of the day.”

That relationship between architecture, site, and lifestyle began with a thorough study of the area’s geography and built structures. “I drove literally a hundred miles down the highway from Billings to Bozeman,” O’Neill recalls of a first formative venture. “And, following the shape of the land, I saw all these beautiful snow fences.” The wood-slat barriers are erected throughout the state to control the accumulation of drifting snow. “They were the first clear indicator of how land and weather would impact the project.” Eventually, those rows of rustic fencing also inspired one of the home’s key exterior details.

O’Neill and his clients decided to nestle the house “in a narrow cut just below the highest point of the site, allowing the land to wrap around it on the northwest side to soften the impact of the prevailing winds,” the architect says. With that orientation established, the contractors cut and positioned blocks of Silver Cloud granite to form the lowest level, which includes a ski locker room, ski-in ski-out access, firepit terraces, a home theater, lounge, game rooms, a bunkroom and accompanying powder and washrooms, and the home’s mechanical room.

To ensure that everything fell precisely into place, notes OSM’s Surratt, they built full-sized dummy windows out of wood, which also provided protection for the builders in all kinds of weather during the year-round construction process. Adds architect O’Neill of winter conditions, “Fifty-mile-per-hour winds, 12-foot snowbanks, and minus-15-degree temperatures are common.”

In addition to the granite lower-level walls and the generously glazed upper stories, one of the most distinctive elements of the home’s exterior is its decorative, yet highly functional, tribute to the region’s snow fences, stemming back to O’Neill’s first drive to the site: a latticework of Accoya, a wood product supplied by Delta Millworks that’s made from sustainably sourced timber treated through a nontoxic process called acetylation, which gives it durability exceeding that of the finest hardwoods. Such qualities are ideally suited to the area’s weather extremes. Further enhancing both the beauty and toughness of the Accoya, its surface was also charred on three sides in the style of the traditional Japanese wood-preserving process shou sugi ban, a term that translates as “charred cedar board.” Explains O’Neill of the ways he deployed it, “In places, this screen separates from the building, creating exterior spaces where the snow is held back so our clients can enjoy a protected moment outdoors.” In winter, the lattice catches and holds the snow in sparkling patterns to provide an unexpected, serendipitous decorative element.

Such aesthetic ties to the region grow even stronger inside the home — and not merely thanks to the vistas offered by the windows on the main level, which, with the home’s wide V-shaped floor plan, seem to greet the view with open, welcoming arms. The same white granite on the lower-level exterior reappears within: cut into squares, honed to cover the living area floors, and finished with a rougher surface for greater traction to form the slip-proof exterior stairs and a patio firepit. The main level’s ceiling also subtly brings a sense of the outdoors inside with a seemingly freeform surface that undulates “like inverted snowdrifts,” observes O’Neill.

One essential element for the sound quality is a custom speaker array that’s concealed within a built-in floor-to-ceiling structure between the kitchen and dining area. Clad in poles of ash wood rubbed with linseed oil that gives them an understated blue-gray sheen, this architectural feature also houses a built-in wood-burning pizza oven with a cast-iron door, along with open storage for the logs that fire it up. “As pizzas are pulled out of the oven, everybody just hangs around the nearby island and stands there eating,” O’Neill laughs. “The pizzas never make it to the table.”

Just down the lattice-lined hallway, the daughter’s bedroom features a built-in bookcase and integrated desk perfect “for doing homework over winter break,” notes the architect. A Swedish glass chandelier delicately encased in a brass cage decorated with foliage, designed by Hans Bergström and produced in the 1940s by Ateljé Lyktan, adds an understated feminine touch.

Enjoying the optimum outlook is the primary suite, which through its peaked window, beholds an unobstructed northward view of the Madison River Valley and snowclad mountains beyond. The built-in king-sized bed faces an alcove-nestled fireplace with a soapstone hearth, which reinforces the feeling of being both tucked in a cozy haven and a part of the surrounding grandeur. On the other side of the fireplace wall, that same view is shared by the primary bath’s deep soaking tub, which also has a large operable window looking westward. The surrounding walls that lack windows are covered with hand-painted dark tiles from the Danish tile and stone-surface company Made a Mano, which are speckled with white to look like stars in the nighttime sky. “So, when you’re in the tub and the lights are off,” says O’Neill, “the walls seem almost to disappear.”

In such details, and in so many other ways, he concludes, “This is a house that allows its occupants to engage with the setting itself.”