In their newlywed days in 2008, El Paso couple Jeremy and Heather Cuthbertson would spend Sundays driving around the city, dreaming of how they could remodel certain fixer-uppers or find a hard-to-come-by piece of land on which to build. At the time, they shared a 1920s cottage in El Paso’s historic Kern Place neighborhood, but they imagined themselves building an ultramodern home in Heather’s beloved hometown, where Jeremy moved after medical school and residency as an ophthalmologist. “It’s uncommon to see a lot for sale in El Paso, but one day we drove up a mountain and found this lot that was unlike anything we had ever seen,” she remembers. The couple, who now have two children, embarked on a five-year process from design to completion and moved into their mountaintop dream home in 2014. With its breathtaking views of Mexico and stone walls that were laid one rock at a time by a local mason, take a tour through this modern marvel of a family home.
After an exhaustive search to find the right architects, from Austin to Santa Fe, the couple decided to work with Tucson-based Darci Hazelbaker and Dale Rush of architecture firm Hazelbaker Rush on the design their home.
Photography by Casey Dunn
It was Dale's idea to have the local stones used on the exterior carried through to the indoors. Heather says: "There are times where you want white sheetrock because it's so beautiful, but the rock is beautiful in a totally different way, and wrapping walls in stone made it warmer. I think our amazing stone mason literally worked on this project for over a year." The mudroom is on the ground floor along with a garage and wine room.
Photography by Casey Dunn
The upstairs floor includes the master bedroom, two children's bedrooms for their five- and seven-year-olds and a playroom the family has dubbed "rumpus room" for its whirl of activity. It's where the four Cutherbertsons spend time building with Legos, reading, and watching movies.
Photography by Casey Dunn
Heather's most important request to her builders was, "Don't scrape the earth," as the goal was to keep as much of the native landscaping as possible. The architects created terraces on the east side of the home (the uphill side) to try to create a place of cultivated plantings. "It's a soft buffer to the hard desert that surrounds the house," architect Dale Rush says. "We used desert grasses and hardy rosemary and palo-verde trees to create shade for the kids to play under. Everywhere else we wanted the desert come right up to the front door."
Photography by Casey Dunn
Heather is the cook in the family and wanted to create an open floor plan upstairs in the kitchen where she could still feel a part of the action. "Heather loves to cook and entertain," architect Darci Hazelbaker says. "We wanted the kitchen to feel like a stage for her, with the island being a place for her to work on one side while people sat and gathered on the other. The dome lights overhead are the stage lighting to put her in focus while the meal is coming together."
Photography by Casey Dunn
The white oak wood on the vanity pairs beautifully with the Calacatta Gold marble countertops that the architects sourced in Phoenix.
Photography by Casey Dunn
The kitchen, framed in basalt stone from a local quarry, looks right out on to the pool, which offers views of El Paso as well as Juarez, Mexico, and New Mexico.
Photography by Casey Dunn
An ophthalmologist by profession, Jeremy has a deep passion for architecture and design. Many of the furnishings, which go so well in the modern home, are pieces the couple already had in their collection.
Photography by Casey Dunn
The master bedroom opens to the east with a view to a terraced courtyard with pink muhly grass, which gloriously blooms twice a year, and onto the stunning peaks of the Franklin Mountains.
Photography by Casey Dunn
When asked what they love most about the home, their first in Texas, architects Hazelbaker and Rush have a long list, from the views, the connection between indoor and outdoor, the warm materials and mix of spaces to entertain as well as places to enjoy solitude. "We feel everything about the home is important and nothing could be removed or added from the whole without distracting from its success."
Photography by Casey Dunn
The space under the stucco white rectangle, which houses all of the bedrooms, is the perfect spot for an outdoor dining table, sofa, fire pit, and an outdoor grill. Dale says: "It was meant to be their outdoor living room for watching the sun set in the west while the city lights of Juarez start to come up in the south, as the sky changes from blue to orange and darkens to indigo."
