Wine & Wildlife

While there were some engineering hurdles to overcome during the wine silo’s two-year design and construction process, one of the biggest difficulties had nothing to do with cooling, ventilation or structural integrity. Instead the hardest question encountered was: Where should it live on the property? “Because of the entertainment value and function of the silo, it sort of gravitated toward the más macho building,” Logan says. Because Ray wanted the new building to be interesting as sculpture and not just as an entertaining and wine storage space, they attached it to the building’s western side, where it could be seen from the main house … while allowing the silo itself views of the Tetons, a pond, creeks flowing through the property, a thick stand of cottonwood, osprey, heron, a resident herd of bull elk and, on really lucky days, a visiting bison. “There are some benefits to having your wine cellar go up rather than down,” says Thurston, whose first home in Jackson was a 90-year old, 1,000-square foot cabin right in Grand Teton National Park.

Connected to the más macho building via a transparent walkway screened on the south side with bands of the same kind of oxidized steel used on its exterior, the silo’s best views come from a 30-foot high rooftop aerie. Intermediate views come from a narrow, north-facing UV glass window stretching almost the full height of the silo’s interior — 18 feet — and shaded with steel screens. A member of the board of directors of Conservation International for nearly a decade, Thurston keeps a pair of binoculars next to the stemware — crystal for both red and white wines, of course — just inside the entrance. “You might come out here for a glass of wine, but you never know what you’ll see,” he says.

Few guests to the silo race for the roof though. Reclaimed foot-wide fir planks — once part of a warehouse in British Columbia — line the interior walls. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to feel as if you’re inside a Brobdingnagian wine cask. The fir in the floor — recycled from the same warehouse — was cut in wedges and set, sunburst-style around a blackened steel center that mirrors a design on the ceiling. The walls, all the way around and from floor to ceiling are lined with custom contemporary steel racks able to hold a total of about 2,000 bottles. Occasional glass shelves accommodate large bottles. Fir-treaded, glass-enclosed, steel-supported stairs wind around and up without taking any attention from the wine display. Even visitors who don’t care about vintages find themselves lingering in the space.