The Smallest Room in Your Modern Mountain Home Might Be the Most Important One
Most people design a modern mountain home without thinking about where they are going to get their best work done. This is one of the most important rooms.
One of the spaces we are designing more and more in our high-end residential projects is what we call the Focus Room. And if you are someone who works from home, or plans to, this might be the most valuable square footage in your entire house.
What a Focus Room is, and what it is not
Back in the day, we designed large open home offices. Big desks, bookshelves floor to ceiling, a couch, a TV setup, a liquor cart. The whole thing. We still design flex spaces like that, and they have their place, but that is not a Focus Room.
A Focus Room is the opposite of all of that.
It is a small dedicated space, typically under 100 square feet, attached to the home and designed for one purpose and one purpose only. Getting things done. No TV. No couch. No distractions. Just you, your laptop, and a window.
With more people working from home than ever before, and that number only growing, we believe every modern mountain home should have one. Not a large office. A focused one.
What goes inside
The beauty of the Focus Room is its simplicity. Everything in it is intentional, and nothing is in it by accident.
A floating desk at the right height for your laptop. A couple of drawers below it for the essentials.
A single chair. We personally specify and own the Herman Miller Aeron, and once you sit in it for a full workday, you will understand why. A built-in bookshelf for reference material and a few things that matter to you.
The view is always towards the outside, a window or a glass panel looking into the landscape. In a mountain home, that view is doing a lot of the work. It gives your eyes somewhere to rest without giving your brain somewhere to wander.
For privacy, we specify switchable smart glass on the window; at the touch of a button, it goes from clear to fully opaque. You control when you are visible and when you are not. It is a detail we have started incorporating into our Focus Rooms, and our clients love it.
The small details that make it work
A Focus Room should never require you to leave until you are ready. So we always build in a small fridge inside the bookshelf, a small sink with filtered water, and a coffee machine. The brand we specify, and that our homeowners consistently love, is Fellow. I don't personally own one, but I have recommended it enough times to know it earns its place in a space like this. Beautiful design, takes up almost no counter space, and it just looks right in a room built around intentionality. Everything within arm's reach. No reason to get up. No reason to lose the thread.
These rooms are also always positioned away from the social areas of the home. Far from the kitchen, the living room, the deck. The physical distance from noise and activity is part of the design. When you walk into the Focus Room, you are making a decision. When you walk out, you are done.
Attached or detached
We design Focus Rooms attached to the home, tucked into a hallway, carved out of an underused corridor, integrated into the layout without adding significant square footage. Done well, you would barely notice it is there from the outside. From the inside, it changes everything about how the home functions for someone who works.
Under 100 square feet. One desk. One chair. One view. That is all it takes.
Is this room right for you
If you are a high performer who works from home, runs a business, or needs four uninterrupted hours a day to think, yes. Without question.
The mountain home lifestyle is about being fully present outdoors when you are outside. The Focus Room is what makes that possible. You go in, you get it done, you close the door behind you, and you go enjoy the rest of your day. Work and life in their proper places.
Want to add a Focus Room to your design
If you love one of our designs but it does not currently include a Focus Room, we can help. We work with our clients to customize any of our plans to fit their lifestyle and the way they actually live and work.
Reach out, and we will show you how to incorporate a Focus Room into your project.