Facet by aspect, on a quiet avenue on a mountain ridge excessive up above Salt Lake Metropolis, sit two properties which might be directly related and but fully completely different.
“It’s the fruits of a complete lifetime,” says Cynthia Strike Petrow concerning the two properties.Ms. Petrow, a 68-year-old musician and Pilates instructor, grew up within the conventional home, which she nonetheless owns together with her three siblings. It serves as a gathering area for holidays for the prolonged household.
In 2015, Ms. Petrow and her husband, George Petrow, a 69-year-old retired legal professional, purchased the property subsequent door for $650,000. Ms. Petrow says they thought it might be a second residence—a spot to trip and see household however with their very own area, and so they preferred the thought of increasing right into a compound. However after tearing down the ranch in 2020 and constructing a brand new, four-bedroom, five-bathroom fashionable home for round $3.85 million, she says they determined to maneuver there full time.
The constructing course of began in 2018, when Mr. Petrow referred to as Anne Mooney, a principal at Sparano + Mooney Structure, primarily based in Salt Lake Metropolis and Los Angeles. He says he noticed images in The Wall Road Journal of a home the agency had designed and wished one thing related.
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Though she was very busy on the time, Ms. Mooney says she couldn’t refuse when Mr. Petrow informed her the deal with of the property: it was on the identical avenue the place she grew up. It seems Ms. Mooney and Ms. Petrow had lived there on the identical interval after they have been younger, however they didn’t know one another. “I understood the road, its site visitors patterns, the seasonality and its steepness,” says Ms. Mooney.
Ms. Petrow and her siblings had renovated their childhood residence in 2012 for round $250,000, so the couple briefly moved in there in 2019, permitting them to oversee building subsequent door. “They couldn’t run and conceal,” says Ms. Petrow concerning the builders.
Ms. Mooney says the overarching design purpose for the brand new fashionable home was to create the sensation of a home floating above the panorama. To that finish, there’s a heavy, recessed base, putting the home a foot increased than the garden. The architects put a water fountain surrounded by easy, rolled lava rock beneath {a partially} coated courtyard between the entrance of the home and the road.
The outside wall is minimize into fin-like constructions that give a contemporary tackle Greek columns that create privateness however nonetheless enable gentle into the house. The fins, and an oval opening within the courtyard roof that reveals the sky, are borrowed parts from classical structure, says Nate King, an architect with Sparano + Mooney who additionally labored on the challenge. It was a nod to Ms. Petrow’s grandparents, who emigrated from Greece to Utah.
The entrance door to the home additionally references Ms. Petrow’s ancestry: it’s constructed from copper as a result of her grandfather owned a normal retailer at an space copper mine, says Ms. Petrow. The storage has the identical form as that of the home subsequent door however there are not any doorways seen. As a substitute, it seems to be a windowless stone wall.
Inside the home, the position and proportions of the partitions have been largely designed round Mr. Petrow’s artwork assortment, a lot of which is images. The gathering’s centerpiece, positioned on the wall of the entryway immediately reverse the entrance courtyard, is a large-format piece by Korean photographer Atta Kim of a avenue in downtown New York Metropolis, made by leaving his lens open for plenty of hours.
An workplace, seen from the courtyard exterior, may be closed off from the remainder of the home with pocket doorways. Down the corridor is the primary bed room, which faces the again of the house and has views of the Wasatch Mountains.
On the opposite aspect of the home is the primary residing area, which additionally has panoramic views of the mountains and the valley beneath, and contains an open lounge, eating room and kitchen. The kitchen additionally closes off from the remainder of the home with pocket doorways. Overhangs on the porch exterior the primary residing area are calculated to optimize the solar and shade in winter and summer season.
Downstairs is the extra casual area, with a household room crammed by a semicircular blue velvet couch, a wine cellar with a glass wall, and three bedrooms and three bogs, one for every of the Petrows’ grownup youngsters, ages 30-37.
Glass doorways open out to a patio and an oblong swimming pool designed to suit with the geometry of the location. Stairs lead from the pool to the home subsequent door, so when Ms. Petrow’s siblings and their households are there, they will simply transfer forwards and backwards between the properties. They will converse between properties from higher decks which might be the identical top.
The Petrows, who met when Mr. Petrow was a legislation pupil on the College of Utah and Ms. Petrow was working for a U.S. senator for Utah, initially thought the brand new Salt Lake Metropolis home they have been constructing could be a second residence. They modified their thoughts because the design advanced and so they realized they wished to stay there full time. Once they purchased the property, they have been residing in London, the place that they had moved in 2012 from Greenwich, Conn., after Mr. Petrow’s legislation agency transferred him there from the New York workplace.
The couple was drawn to the views and the reconnection with family and friends, says Ms. Petrow. It isn’t as thrilling a spot to stay as New York or London, she says, however it’s a good place to return. “We spend a whole lot of time watching the climate are available.” says Mr. Petrow with a smile.
