When Tracy and Mike Schlauch finally decided to bring the lake home they’d been dreaming about for more than a decade to fruition, it was designed to be a retreat where meaningful memories with friends and family would be made while appreciating Montana’s beauty. “Mike......
Magazine Racks by Norseman Designs West Originally based in New York, John Gallis traded in a lucrative career building custom cabinetry for Bloomingdale’s for an artisan-based way of life through his company Norseman Designs West in Cody, Wyoming. His award-winning, one-of-a-kind pieces are rooted in......
At the beginning of each year, many of the top paint companies announce the shade they believe best represents the design trends of that time, with picks that range from neutral tones to uplifting pops of color. Often driven by fashion, technology, lifestyle, and pop......
Innovative technology, easy-care fabrics, versatile accessories, and simple luxe designs top our list of must-haves for mountain-based living and alpine adventures in the glorious summer months ahead. Proud Grill Tool Set A sleek magnetic handle connects two BBQ tools and provides four uses; a backyard......
Inspired by Place Written by Chase Reynolds Ewald Architecture and design powerhouse CLB Architects’ first monograph, Inspired by Place, is a passion project named after the firm’s guiding philosophy. Written by Chase Reynolds Ewald — with forwards by Ian Volner, Tom Kundig, and Agnes Bourne......
Whether you’re contemplating a remodel or new build in the Rocky Mountain West, or you’re a collector of all things Western, art and home shows offer essential inspiration, advice, and products from some of the best regional artisans and designers, with wares specifically suited to......
Through years of travel and research and a love for the outdoors, interior designer Patricia Kennedy conceived a trademarked “Interiors for Wellness” process, combining the health benefits of nature with the aesthetic appeal of thoughtful design. Employing sustainable, biophilic (nature oriented), and accessible elements, Kennedy......
When Ron Shanor creates the Western furniture that has garnered him admiration for the past three decades, he welcomes an assist from an unexpected collaborator: Mother Nature. The gracefully curved feet of his armchair legs benefit from trees that have grown on slopes or were......
While much time is often invested in designing the shared living spaces of a home — the great room, dining room, and kitchen areas where people tend to gather — a bedroom can feel like an afterthought. But considering that most people spend an average......
What began in 1995 as a modest two-person metal fabrication shop in a Salt Lake City garage is today known as Hammerton, a powerhouse in the luxury decorative lighting industry. At the company’s 50,000-square-foot facility, teams of designers, engineers, and artisans collectively crank out hundreds......
For Jeremy Mistretta, it’s been a long journey: from growing up back East to attending college in Bozeman, Montana, dabbling in freelance writing, starting a painting business, and, ultimately, studying the art of Tadelakt (an artisanal wall surface created with lime-plastered black soap made from......
Terry Winchell was a child prodigy antique dealer. Growing up along the border of Wyoming and Nebraska, he was fascinated by Western history from a young age. He was only 14 when he bought — and swiftly resold — his first piece of antique furniture.......
Architecture Miller | Roodell Architects Construction Bolton Custom Homes Interior Design Abby Hetherington Interiors Standing on a property surrounded by a number of mountain ranges, one might think the impetus for building there would be what’s found outside the windows. But for this home in......
Architecture CLB Architects Construction Robert Strohmenger Construction Interior Design SWC Interiors Landscape Architecture Agrostis In art, a small painting that exhibits transformational use of light and shadow, lines, color, and expressive detail is frequently referred to as a gem. In northwest Wyoming, a modest-sized house......
Architecture MMW Architects Construction JM Moran & Company Interior Design Kibler & Kirch Every now and then, a design defies definition. That’s certainly the case with a home that sits on a corner lot, surrounded by 100-plus-year-old architectural gems, in Missoula, Montana’s University District. And......
Architecture Locati Architects Construction Schlauch Bottcher Construction Interior Design Locati Interiors Landscape architecture Doepker Landscaping Overlooking a lake off of a quiet road in northwest Montana is a home that connects a family to the surrounding alpine environment and settles into place among the old-growth trees......
Architecture Cushing Terrell Construction Garber Construction A young political science major becomes interested in Montana politics, travels there to research her thesis, and ends up falling in love with Big Sky Country. Years later, when she visits the Bitterroot Valley with her husband, he falls......
Architecture Mt. Ararat Design Construction Bear Mountain Builders Interior Design Hunter & Company When a Southern California couple with four children began searching for the second home they’d been dreaming of in Montana, little did they know that the very residence they’d imagined awaited them......
Architecture Mark Weirich Architect Construction Blue Ribbon Builders When Lauren Quackenbush set out to design her Big Sky, Montana residence, she knew she wanted to create a bright, airy, colorful place where her family and friends would love to gather. Splitting her time between Orlando,......
Architecture Zimtor Architecture Construction Rooney’s Inc. Interior Design Elizabeth Robb Interiors Anyone glimpsing the tidy log cabin sitting on a ranch near White Sulphur Springs, Montana would likely assume it was a historical relic from the 1880s, when it provided shelter for the cowhands. Out......
Architecture Dubbe Moulder Architects Interior Design Elevated Living When you’ve spent your life living in large, international cities and it comes time to retire, how do you decide where to put down roots? One worldly couple was dreaming of a more remote, peaceful location when......
Architecture Altius Design Group Construction Malmquist Construction Interior Design Liz Kahn Design & Tate Interiors Landscape architecture Bruce Boody Landscape Architect What was intended to be a remodel on a dated 1980s-era house overlooking Montana’s Whitefish Lake resulted in a completely new home. A consensus......
Architecture Concept Seven Designs Construction Zoske Construction While looking for property around Bozeman, Montana, custom home builder Mike Zoske and his client discovered a 300-acre parcel located off the beaten path, but not far from town. Before purchasing the land, he and Zoske tossed around......
Architecture Berlin Architects Construction Foss Construction Interior design WRJ Design Situated on 40 acres — once part of a ranch owned by Wyoming’s “Cowboy Governor” Clifford Hansen in the 1960s — a log home near Jackson Hole now sports a 21st-century look and feel while......
Forty years ago, a couple and their 2-year-old son were invited by a colleague in Texas to visit his home in the Northern Rockies. It was a trip that sparked a love affair with the mountains and rivers of central Idaho. Over the following years,......
Thirty miles north of Big Sky and just south of Bozeman, Montana, a fabled landmark started a new chapter in the fall of 2020. Today, Stacey’s Old Faithful Bar & Steakhouse offers a combination of history, community, good food, and camaraderie with the charm of......
More than 50 years ago, southeastern Montana’s landscape changed forever when a 525-foot-high dam was erected on Crow Tribal land to control flooding, generate power, and provide irrigation to farms and ranchlands. The added benefit was the creation of the striking Bighorn Canyon National Recreation......
In 2013, the newly-elected governor of Montana, Steve Bullock, commissioned artist Parks Reece for a painting to be unveiled at his inauguration ceremony at the state capital building in Helena. “I did a weird one,” Reece says. “I mean, I was surprised. [Bullock] gave me......
I woke in the middle of the night from a dead sleep with this poem running through my head, scribbled it down on the notebook beside my bed, and then fell back asleep. When I read it the next morning, I felt like I was......
Many anglers have likely discovered that even though we’re the ones casting a fly, it’s the trout that hooks us. When this happens, the sport becomes not just a game, but a passion. For angler David Stuver, it also turned into a lifetime of education.......
To say that we need to re-make our relationship with fire is both accurate and dangerous. Accurate because, well, not so many folks cook or heat with wood anymore. I suspect a lot of people’s only experience with it comes once or twice a year,......
Bare branches, you were dark lead around each colored pane. You outlined every piece of winter blue, then the wet violets and gold crocuses of spring. You caged gray flocks of mourning doves, embraced the satin strips of green breaking through black dirt, cupped a......
In The Stone Sister (Black Lawrence Press, $25.95), Caroline Patterson offers a kaleidoscopic story of loss and redemption centered around a deep family secret and a state institution’s dark past. In the 1950s, infants with Down syndrome were routinely institutionalized, and their parents were told......
I recently had the opportunity to chat with legendary fly-fishing pioneer Joan Wulff, known as The First Lady of Fly Fishing. At 95 years old, she was spirited as she talked about the evolution she’s witnessed in the sport, and because of the tremendous impact......
In 1960, 34-year-old Joan Cummings — later to become Joan Wulff — used a one-handed bamboo fly rod to cast 161 feet and set an unofficial women’s record. Unofficial because there was no women’s distance division in casting events at the time; Joan competed with......
To know a place Written by John Gifford My wife and I have this ongoing debate: Have you visited a place — a state, for example — if you’ve only spent a few hours in one of its airports? Or by driving through it on......
“Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” — Henry David Thoreau At some point, about a dozen years into my practice of fly fishing, it became important to me to catch a really big fish.......
I was looking out the window, watching the last bit of winter drip off the roof, creating a Morse code message of sorts: longer drips keyed in amongst tight, neat drops — all of them bursting with sunlight. If I’d known the code, I might......
Phil Gonzalez recalls fishing the Bighorn River a few times back before Yellowtail Dam transformed it into one of the nation’s premier trout fisheries.“It was muddy, that’s mostly what I remember,” says Gonzalez, who was raised on the Yellowstone River in Huntley Project, east of......
Marquee destinations in Big Sky Country now receive unprecedented levels of visitation, particularly during peak operational seasons. Consequently, intel on off-the-beaten-path alternatives has never been more valuable. Excluding the abbreviated and access-restricted 2020 season due to COVID-19, Glacier National Park, for instance, has averaged roughly......
I can’t believe all that water tore through here,” I reflected. “Even Noah’s proverbial ark would have splintered on the rocks, the world’s animals lost.” My wife Mary and I gaped over a rocky precipice into the maw of western Montana’s Sun River Canyon, time-traveling......
In late April 2021, Lewistown, Montana outdoorsman Brad McCardle was enjoying his free evenings in the foothills of the Big Snowy Mountains. He was hunting black bears — which are abundant in the area and legal game — but he wound up finding far more......
Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to Boost Conservation and Restoration Efforts The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a substantial legislative package targeting U.S. infrastructure and conservation priorities, was recently advanced by the House of Representatives to President Biden’s desk. The bill includes key measures aimed at reclaiming......
There’s an old adage in the bird-watching world: “If the bird and the book disagree, believe the bird.” These intelligent creatures have evolved to successfully occupy nearly every earthly habitat. They do things that surprise and delight us, and the more we watch and pay......
Little did Nate Stansfield know, as he spent his youth fishing the quiet mountain streams of northern New England and chasing striped bass off the Cape Ann coast in Massachusetts, that he would one day be defined by those selfsame pursuits. After stints across the......
Ski resorts in the Rocky Mountain West — even the ones that once felt undiscovered — now seem more crowded than ever. For those of us who moved here to enjoy our winters gliding on the snow and carving turns in fresh powder, the experience......
Jennifer Wicks places two bars of chocolate in front of me and my 14-year-old daughter Tessa. “These are each made with the same recipe of 72 percent cacao and 28 percent sugar,” she tells us. “See if you can tell the difference.” As fellow chocoholics,......
Arguably one of the most memorable and iconic winter experiences of my life thus far was zipping through the Montana wilderness on the back of a wooden sled. Quietly being pulled over ice and snow by an enthusiastic and joyful team of dogs — with......
Like most people, I’d only visited Yellowstone National Park in the summer — when the viewing area and boardwalks that weave around Old Faithful are so crowded that it’s nearly impossible to photograph the marvel of nature without also capturing the hordes of tourists. However,......
In an essay on the history of storytelling, writer Ursula Le Guin posits that, as a species, we have prioritized tales of adventure and action, drama and conflict. Paleolithic hunters returned not just with mammoth meat, but also — and perhaps just as importantly —......