A Southwestern Contemporary
Not every new home is Territorial, Pueblo, Santa Fe or Ranch

From the road, it appears to be another lovely New Mexico-style home set among the pinon trees in the East Mountains, an easy commute to Albuquerque. Your first glance takes in the flat roof and the neat, simple walls clad in a greentinged brown that blends with the trees, but a second look reveals no canales channeling rainwater from the roof, no corbels adding their timeless accents, no vigas poking through clay walls.

As you turn into the driveway and skirt the garage, you discover this is really a very stylish, very contemporary stucco home, a design of squares and cubes, of clean lines and earth tones, and wondrous, wondrous views. The greens of the pinons encircling the house and the mixed tones of the mountains near and far are very much a part of its color palette. These are reflected in the man-made accents of antler brown on the exterior and the offwhites of interior walls, Berber carpeting and ceramic floor tile.

As far as builder Jeff Speck knows, this is the only contemporary-style home in the 3,656-acre Paa-ko Communities, but it seems completely at home here among the custom pueblo designs, the territorials and the ranch styles. It doesn't The pedestrian bridge that leads to the second story is hidden behind the three car garage. call attention to itself, masked as it is by the three-car garage set in front of the pedestrian bridge that approaches the second-story entry The front wall of the house shows its face as a series of rectangular blocks delineated by narrow white stripes, bringing to mind a Mondrian painting in duotone. (The lines also act as expansion joints.)

These owners employ nature as their decorator. They came to in the first place for its peace and quiet and for the unobstructed views preserved by undergrounding all utilities. To provide the right backdrop, they chose rooms pale in tone and simple in design with rectangular shapes dominating: in two gas-log fireplaces, in lightly stained maple cabinets and built-in shelves and even in the casings around doorways, the trim around windows and the baseboards edging the walls. (Jeff points out the only circular figure he can recall in the house is a custom skylight in the kitchen.)

The simplicity and light colors are designed to let nature provide the accent from many viewpoints - the sunroom off the living room upstairs, the deck atop a 14-foot pillar in the rear, the private balcony set at tree-top level adjacent to the master bedroom.

The upper level contains the living room, sunroom/dining room, kitchen and master suite including an office. Downstairs, the kids reign, with their own family room - complete with refrigerator and kitchen sink - and three bedrooms. Every bedroom has its own bath.

Designed to the clients' requirements on almost three acres by Kent Trauernicht of AKT Architects, the 3,300-square-foot house is the latest product of Jeffs JADEnterprises. His work in construction goes back to his high school years in the late'70s, when he started by cleaning out houses and handling call-backs. He learned most of what he knows on the job, but he did take classes to earn a Certified Graduate Remodeler designation. In 1983, he and his wife Debra formed JADE (it stands for Jeff and Debra Enterprises) and began working together as a team of two. "A skylight was a big job for us then," he recalls. Debra also learned by doing, but faded out of the business after they had a baby Jeff started hiring help in 1985 and now has four people working for him. He concentrates his time on client conferences, the bidding process, scheduling of work, etc.

When he is building a new home, he usually tries to get involved during the design phase so he can have some input and get a good feeling for what the clients really want. "It's hard to have the plans just dropped in my lap." In this case, he was recommended by Kent and had the opportunity to become involved early. "He is one of my favorite architects to work with," Jeff says. "I am going to be building his own home soon.

The house in Paa-ko has been an "overall fun project" for the youthful builder. "It was very exciting when we had to crane in the bridge and deck." The 41-foot bridge was constructed on site in the garage, and the crane took only half an hour to settle it in. The deck was welded together, then wide-loaded to the site. "It took six hours to set it in place. I must have aged 10 years watching a 72-foot crane wobble as it lifted the deck over the house to set it on a pier 14 feet above the ground. The crane almost tilted over - I was afraid it would go through the front of the house!"

Now, it seems worth all the trouble. The deck juts out from the living room, providing a great tree-top platform to view the arroyo that skirts the side of the house, to watch the birds congregate at their feeding bins and to view the mountains that move off into the distance with barely a man-made structure in sight.

Courtesy of Su Casa, Summer, 1996.
Article: Barbara Ruzinsky. Photography: Jerry Rabinowitz