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For AD100 designer Andre Mellone, there’s nothing worse than a detached client. “My biggest nightmare is a person who says, ‘Carte blanche, do whatever you want, and I’ll see you at the end,’” he says. “Some designers might like that to avoid the friction in relationships, but for me that’s not where I get inspired.” He met his match with Lauren Santo Domingo, cofounder of Moda Operandi and artistic director of Tiffany Home, who reached out to the designer about taking on her family’s ski house in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“Lauren really understands style and has a point of view,” says Mellone, who expected Santo Domingo’s mood board to be rather “traditional, classic, and elegant” and was left pleasantly surprised: “Her ideas and inspirations showed another side to her,” he says. “They were modern, masculine, and very midcentury design—all these references were smack into what I like but coming from her.” The auspicious beginnings bred a ski house refined in style and lacking of almost every, as Santo Domingo puts it, “chalet cliché.” Here, Mellone takes AD PRO behind the design of the mountain retreat, which graces the cover of AD’s December issue.
Perfect Fits
For Mellone, a winning interior is “a balance of vintage, custom, and contemporary.” It worked out perfectly, then, that during the design of this home, Santo Domingo ventured to Europe and paid a special visit to vintage design gallery Morentz in the Netherlands. “I said to her ‘I can’t believe you’re there, that’s one of my favorite places too,’” says Mellone, adding that Santo Domingo texted him a photo of her daughter at the gallery sitting in an Ovalia egg chair by Thor Larsen for Torlan Staffanstorp with the note: “We’re getting this.” The piece can now be found in the family room matching the rare Kvadrat-upholstered modular Novemila sofa by Tito Agnoli for Arflex.
A shared fondness for Morentz was just one of the serendipitous happenings. Both Mellone and Santo Domingo were eager to work with New York design studio Green River Project, whose daybed upholstered in fabric from Bode lends a pop of blue to the living room. But the anchor of this space is the Studio Mellone–designed L-shaped sectional, a reinterpretation of a work by the late Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti. “This room had funky proportions—it was very skinny, very long—so it was important that this piece fit perfectly,” says Mellone, who created the sofa early in the process and determined the rest of the living room’s design choices around it.
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Balancing Act
Cozy textures and an earthy color palette contribute to the home’s warm welcome, but it’s the allover millwork that makes all the difference. Mellone estimates that nearly three-fourths of the home’s interior surfaces feature a wood element, whether it’s the ceiling paneling, the wainscoting, or the flooring. Santo Domingo’s vision was to have a hand-painted quality to the rich, dark stain, thus challenging Mellone to find the perfect shade of white paint to complement the enveloping roasted-brown timber. “Benjamin Moore’s Cloud White was neutral enough—not too warm, not too cool,” says Mellone of their ultimate pick. The hue plays perfectly with the natural light that bounces off the snow outside and floods the house.
Big Gestures
When Mellone spotted a set of ’70s-era concrete seating by the late American designer Michael Taylor at Merit in Southampton, New York, he instantly had them trucked to Jackson Hole. Now, the plump, low-slung set makes a sculptural statement on the patio. “I wanted a big gesture here—each space in the home has something that holds everything together and feels very architectural,” he explains of the no-fuss, oversized pieces, which have drains that filter the melting snow when it accumulates. “They can take a beating,” he adds.
Picking Favorites
According to Mellone, one measure of a project’s success is when he’s unable to pinpoint a favorite room—as is the case here. That said, a particular point of pride for the designer is the dining room configuration. “Lauren wanted to accommodate 16 seats, and the previous owners had a gigantic round table, which creates a great deal of distance between those gathered,” he says. Table testing ensued, trying out dining tops of varying makes and models. “We landed on a huge banquette framing two tables for more of a refectory or lodge tavern feel,” says Mellone. And when it comes to picking a beloved artwork from Santo Domingo’s collection, he gravitates towards a work titled Heep (Borealis) by Robert Rauschenberg, which hangs in the hallway leading to the spa room. Beside it is a 16-foot-long daybed that Mies van der Rohe designed for the IBM building in Chicago. Don’t feel alone if it’s hard to tell where the art ends and the decor begins: “I think of furniture more and more as art,” says Mellone.
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