Nestled into a craggy embankment from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, this combination art studio and guesthouse looks like something directly out of The Hobbit. Engineered rock walls appear to emerge out of the landscape, framing deep-set windows and also a fairy tale door fitted with a functioning porthole window. Stout pine trusses and also a stacked-stone fireplace wrap the 500-square-foot interior in a rustic embrace.

Though the place looks like it’s been around for ages, the construction is actually fresh — a collaboration between Peter Boes of TKP Architects in Golden, Colorado, and the few who owns the key house on the property. “We wanted to match the look of the main house, which seems like an old turn-of-the-century cabin,” says one of the owners.

at a Glance
Who lives here: That can be an art studio and a guesthouse for a married couple.
Location: Golden, Colorado
Size: 500 square feet

TKP Architects

The owners had originally planned to construct a much bigger arrangement to replace the shoddy old shack that sat behind their property. But the police intervened, ruling that the new arrangement needed to conform to the footprint and size of the old arrangement.

To get the steep roof the owners desired, Boes gingerly excavated 8 ft to the surrounding stone, so the top of the new construction was not any greater than the older one. “It was crucial that you keep the stone outcrop looking as though it had been,” says the architect, that resorted to hand excavation — instead of blasting — to preserve the atmosphere.

Door: Konnen Glashaus

TKP Architects

The house is just a brief walk from the primary residence, an 1890s cabin constructed during the region’s aluminum, gold and silver boom. Even though the primary house was dramatically remodeled in 2001, it still retains its historical flavor.

In constructing the new cabin, the owners were excited to do justice to both the house and the first construction. By sinking the new arrangement to the hillside, they diminished the cottage’s presence on the website and preserved views from the main dwelling over.

TKP Architects

The exterior walls have been originally supposed to be perpendicular. But on a bicycle trip through the Black Hills of South Dakota through construction, the few passed the Peter Norbeck Visitor Center, an old Civilian Conservation Corps building from the 1930s, and were immediately smitten with the battered stone walls.

“It was a real ‘ah-ha’ second,” recalls the client, who told Boes about it when she got home. Cherry Masonry obligingly altered its plans, massing large boulders round the rock base and shrinking the size of the rocks as they progress upwards. “It almost looks like the whole arrangement is growing out of the rock,” she states.

TKP Architects

Ordinances limited the arrangement to just 500 square feet, so the plan had to be exceptionally efficient. The interior is just one open room with a bath tucked beneath the fireplace and also a sleeping loft over. A quartet of sliding doors joins inside and exterior.

Cabinetry: Martin Shea Millwork; sliding doors: Konnen Glashaus

TKP Architects

Since there was not room for a conventional staircase to the sleeping loft, the spouse invented this vine-like “Jefferson stair” with alternating treads. Growing up to the bedroom is like climbing a beanstalk.

TKP Architects

People who venture up the ladder are rewarded with a snug sleeping perch illuminated through an arched window.

TKP Architects

Alternatively, guests can take advantage of the Murphy bed in the living area.

TKP Architects

The cabin was created to serve as both a guest escape and a studio to the spouse, who makes jewelry when she isn’t working in the medical device industry. The challenge, she says, was to make it so guests did not feel as though they were sleeping in an art studio. (And to keep pieces of jewelry from falling into the cracks between the floorboards.)

Boes invented storage for several of the jewelry-making supplies, so they are tucked out of sight when not being used. The resulting space looks like a kitchen, although construction codes prevented the owners from installing a real kitchen in the cabin.

TKP Architects

Madison the Persian cat openings in front doorway, which is fitted with an operable round window. The doorway’s form echoes that of their front door of the main house.

TKP Architects

The painted cabinets sparked a great deal of discussion, since they represent the only bit of color in the space. It had been determined to paint them green, inspired by an old farm table the owners needed. Unfortunately, that color did not work, and no one could come up with an alternate shade that looked any better.

As the architect and the owners deliberated over swatches one day, cabinetmaker Martin Shea stood up, walked out and plucked a leaf from a sage plant. Everybody agreed the color was perfect.

Counter: Silestone

TKP Architects

Niches were integrated into the interior to exhibit some of the jewelry created here. The husband, an oil and gas sector executive, also relaxes from the guesthouse on occasion.

TKP Architects

The ceiling trusses were made out of longleaf yellow pine salvaged in the Civil War–era munitions factory in Louisiana. The same wood was used on the plank floors as well. The walls are hemlock that is whitewashed that is fresh.

TKP Architects

Glazed Moroccan tile adorns the walls of the shower, and this has an integrated bench. The floors are glass.

Wall tile: Ann Sacks; floor tile: Oceanside Glasstile

TKP Architects

The bathroom features a custom concrete sink. Towel storage was integrated into the vanity to save space.

TKP Architects

The bathroom’s porthole window echoes the window in front door.

TKP Architects

A tapestry of gray, green and burgundy slate adorns the roof, which is dotted with aluminum snow fences and trimmed with aluminum gutters. Japanese rain chains choose the place of downspouts, which the architect states just would not have appeared right on this type of home.

TKP Architects

An arched window in the sleeping loft peers over a pathway wending through the rocks. Contractor Old Greenwich Builders of Denver took pains to combine the house to its own setting, so every feels to be an extension of another.

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