The Community Library's 31st annual Tour of Homes will feature five homes selected to give tour-goers inspiration and ideas for living in central Idaho and beyond. The tour will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 7, in the Ketchum area. Tax-deductible tickets cost $75, which includes the event's Jazz in the Garden Party with refreshments and music.
The tour includes the home of Amber and Ken Rohl, who have created a Tuscan villa tucked away on the banks of Trail Creek in Ketchum. The Rohls are the founders of Rohl decorative plumbing and hardware. All the bathroom and kitchen fixtures in the Rohl home were selected from their own line, authentically crafted in Western European factories. Having lived in Warm Springs and Starweather (mid-valley) over the last 20 years, they recently decided to become Ketchum urbanites.
Debra and John Bacon's Ketchum house is a 5,000-square-foot home that radiates warmth and comfort for a family with children and grandchildren. The layout has spectacular views. Most rooms are on one level to encourage free flow and communication, and most rooms face the Bigwood Golf Course and Baldy.
< Austen and Lynn Gray split their time between Locust Valley, N.Y., and the Sun Valley area. Austen is an architect. When designing his Ketchum retreat—a place for his family to feel always at home—he wanted every detail to evoke a vision of the West. He describes the main hallway, however, as the Champs-Élysées, because it is the common thoroughfare from which all the rooms interconnect. The construction of the chestnut, hand-hewn beams gives the home a feeling of great fortitude—an important element in Austen's architectural design. It reveals his affinity for territorial architecture, and a commitment to preserving the architecture of the Old West.
Patricia and Gary Darman's 8,000-square-foot home boasts a helix structure inside and outside of the house above the Big Wood Golf Course. The living room features a large fireplace made from Oakley stone quarried south of Oakley, Idaho, in Cassia County. It includes several art pieces, including an urban-style painting by Charlotte Berkowitz. The three guestrooms share access to a comfy screening room with a ceiling-mounted projector. In addition, there is a first-class exercise room with an impressive selection of machines that opens onto the terrace.
Frank and Susan Ward had award-winning architect Jack Smith design their house on the Big Wood Golf Course, which he calls his "Waterfall House"—a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Waters," north of Pittsburgh. The laminated-wood post-and-beam home features Japanese framing methods and plenty of windows for the Wards and their guests to look out onto maginifcent views of Baldy, the Adams Gulch area, and the mountains north of Ketchum.
Free bus transportation provided by Mountain Rides on Saturday will leave the Ketchum library every 20 minutes starting at 9:55 a.m. Buses will circulate to the homes and the Garden Party in Adams Gulch north of Ketchum. No parking will be allowed at any of the homes or in the Bigwood Golf Course parking lot. Public parking is available in the city parking lot across the street from the library next to the LDS church. No food, cameras or high heels will be allowed—booties will be provided. The library strongly encourages tour-goers to ride bikes.
Sabina Dana Plasse: splasse@mtexpress.com
Tour of Homes
The Community Library presents the Tour of Homes on Saturday, Aug. 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tour five Sun Valley-area homes. For a preview of the homes, visit www.thecommunitylibrary.org. Tickets are available for purchase on the website, at the library or by calling 726-3493. All proceeds benefit The Community Library in Ketchum and its free services. Tickets cost $75 (tax-deductible) and include the Jazz in the Garden Party from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with light refreshments and live music.
Photo by Tim Brown
The Ward home on the Big Wood Golf course features laminated-wood post-and-beam Japanese framing methods.
