Wine & Wildlife
A wine lover works around an obstacle to create a completely original wine cellar.
Borrowing from agrarian structures, the pure silo form is clad in oxidized steel plates to gracefully weather and blend with the existing buildings and landscape. Architect Eric Logan of Carney Architects designed the sculptural outbuilding for practical wine storage and also for entertaining. Photo By: Paul Warchol
The sculptural 300-square-foot silo is connected to the mas machos building, where all the parties happen on the property and is visible from the main house. Photo By: Paul Warchol
The Thurston’s property is within the Snake River Plain, which prevented the construction of a traditional below-ground wine cellar, but the creative above ground solution has been a successful alternative. Photo By: Paul Warchol
A transparent glass walkway leads from the entertainment building to the wine silo. Photo By: Paul Warchol
Inspired by a wine cask, the interior of the silo is characterized by reclaimed fir woodwork and a spiral staircase that leads to a top-floor observation deck. Photo By: Paul Warchol
A crystal decanter catches the light sifting in through a vertical window that spans from floor to ceiling in the wine silo. Photo By: Paul Warchol
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Almost as impressive as what you see in the silo is what you don’t see. Fir on the inside and patinaed steel on the outside, the space between the two is nearly one foot thick. “Remembering this building’s main function is as a wine cellar, we pretty much had to build a big cooler,” Logan says. Between the fir and the steel are concrete-filled, rebar-reinforced foam blocks that insulate the interior and support the exterior steel plates.
Most guests to the wine silo — whether there for one of the impromptu neighborhood potlucks the Thurstons often host or for a more formal dinner benefiting the Jackson Hole One Fly Event — don’t care about how the cooler was created. Standing on the covered, open-sided roof deck, a glass of Thurston’s preferred sip — currently Domaine William Févre Chablis — in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other, cottonwoods whispering and painterly cumulus clouds accenting the Tetons’ snowfields, practical details are the last thing on one’s mind, even if it was a practicality that made this cellar a silo in the first place.
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Dina Mishev writes about travel, sports, adventure, gear, art, people, and lifestyle topics for Outside, National Geographic Adventure, The Chicago Tribune, Big Sky Journal, Western Art & Architecture, Sunset, Cooking Light, NWA World Traveler, United Hemispheres, Wyoming Tourism, Arizona Tourism, and Mobil Travel Guide. Assignments have taken her from spas in Africa to granite cliffs in Tasmania. Her first book, Wyoming Curiosities, was published by Globe Pequot in July 2007.
  
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