Bold in Boulder

An interior designer rebuilt her own modern ranch from the ground up, creating an architecturally intriguing, multilevel family home with easy access to the great outdoors.

- CHRISTINE LENNON 

When Stephanie Waddell, founder of Colorado-based Istoria Interior Design, moved from Chicago to Boulder with her husband, Greg, and her young son, Ames, she was looking for the kind of mountain-adjacent life that makes people fall in love with the West. She wanted a home with room for her family to grow, with great views of the surrounding landscape, a layout designed for entertaining friends in the close-knit community, and the expansive feeling of open space that fosters a connection with nature. They found a 1970s-era modern house on a double lot in a great neighborhood, with a Japanese-influenced garden that had been written up in the local press when it was first designed. 

There was only one problem. 

“The ceilings in some of the rooms were not even eight feet high,” says Waddell. “And I’m six feet tall. My husband is tall. We had a feeling our son was going to be tall. The house was dated and cramped and long-term, that just wasn’t going to work.” The move also facilitated a career shift for Waddell, a fine arts major who’d spent time working in the Chicago gallery world then founded a home textile business with patterns of her own design.