House Beautiful
See How Maria Crosby Renovated a Victorian Home While Maintaining Its Original Glory
By Mary Elizabeth Andriotis
LIVING ROOM
Tapped to design a house nestled in the West End neighborhood of Aspen—known for its many Victorian homes—designer Maria Crosby collaborated with Colorado-based firm Forum Phi to help the clients transform their home in spite of strict local regulations surrounding the renovation, all the while making the most of every bit of space.
"The metal screen wall to the open stairwell is a design based on a fretwork spandrel the client and I saw on an old Victorian house in the neighborhood," reveals Crosby. "The open floor plan means that everything has to flow and stand up to the elements—and family life."
KITCHEN
"This kitchen needed to have enough personality to hang with the adjacent living room or dining room," explains Crosby. One of her favorite moments from designing the space came after she told the home's architect, Ryan Lee, that she would be installing purple tiles as a backsplash. "He thought I was insane, and when another member of his team entered the meeting he literally shouted at him, "SHE'S GOING TO USE PURPLE TILE IN THE KITCHEN!!!!"
Fortunately, Crosby says the design team "went on to have a great time and success working together and I think [Lee] was pleasantly surprised to see that this much color could work, even if it's not for everybody." She also made sure to include materials typically found in the surrounding area, such as oil-rubbed bronze, copper, and open-grain wood "to balance the contemporary lines in the architecture."
DINING ROOM
In designing the dining room, Crosby says the goal was to create a "comfortable place where people want to linger and no one has to worry as the fabrics are very sturdy." She adds that the paneling was installed to "conceal a jib door into the garage."
PRIMARY BEDROOM
The primary bedroom of this home always had "great space, light and views," says Crosby, "but is very angular, and it needed some warmth." The designer decided to create a nod to the dwelling's Victorian architecture by incorporating clover-clad Cole & Son wallpaper on all of the walls, ceilings and hard-to-reach soffits "to help soften things."
"We must've broken some sort of record for wallpaper in Aspen—certainly for pattern and color in one house," Crosby jokes.