179 ZUMBRUN , Red Lodge, MT 59068(Carbon County)

Surrounded by panoramic and close up mountain views of the highest mountains in Montana, you can enjoy the true atmosphere of Montana. The home built in 2004 incorporates much of an old barn from the time of the pioneers. It blew down in a windstorm nearby and now came back to life in this home! Also incorporated is an old wooden box car for some of the window casings. The wooden box cars where given to ranchers for storage sheds when the rail road switched to metal cars, quite a few years back. The outside of the home are chinked log slabs, cedar and ledge stone.

To match the nostalgia, an antique copper sink was installed in the mudroom and a small one in the powder room. The bathroom upstairs is straight out of the 1950's with a 50's sink and white and blue tiles. Just off that bathroom you have a nook with an armoire and a small deck going out to enjoy the sunset over the mountains. Upstairs is for guests, kids and music. The bedroom with the bunk beds also has a loft where small people love to hide under the vaulted ceiling. The big loft overlooking the great room downstairs features a piano and an organ, so when somebody plays you can hear it all over the house. If nobody plays, you can still hear music all over the house with the built in sound system, the stack is hidden in the walk out basement, right next to the handy laundry shoot in the spacious laundry room.

The fourth bedroom is in the walk-out basement as well, along with all the toys and fun stuff, such as a tiled steam sauna and an outdoor shower around the corner from the hot tub. The deck downstairs has connections for a gas BBQ or you could add an outdoor fireplace there for ambiance. The whole west side downstairs is sided with the cultured ledge stone, which reflects the sunlight in the afternoon with golden sparks, it is quite spectacular. Overhead some of the old beams are showcased, which makes the downstairs patio kind of cozy. Back inside is the game room with connections for a wet bar, a game machine, football table, pool table that converts to a ping/pong table, exercise machines a closet for skiers and….. drum roll…. A butler's pantry! Now you don't have to go upstairs for refills. If you spill it, no problem, the heated floor is tiled for easy cleanup.

As you walk across the covered front porch into the front door, or you come in from the heated and insulated garage, there is the mudroom with artistically vented boxes waiting for your shoes and hangers for your coats and jackets. There is even a sink big enough to wash the dog before you bring him in the house. The stairs going up and down are gated, so you can keep your four legged friends confined to one particular level. The floor on the main level is all hardwood; it is new but looks aged to match the barn wood wainscoting throughout the home.

Now on the main level we have the master bedroom with a balcony to the west, a very large walk-in closet and a granite shower with two shower heads. The sink surround is marble on a big dresser with matching overhead cabinets. The balcony was actually designed to have a spiral staircase to go downstairs to the outdoor shower and hot tub, but those stairs were never put in.

Back in the foyer, past the powder room, we turn the corner going south, we see a couple of easy chairs in front of the picture window looking at the ski runs of Red Lodge. As we come closer the full view of the great room is upon us. The great room was designed to resemble a barn in the Greene and Greene style with lots of light and fresh air (the father of the Greene and Greene brothers was a homoeopathist). The Greene brothers had been inspired with Japanese architecture since they visited the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. The structure of the Greene & Greene house is essential not only to the immense feeling of security that such an overly-supported structure brings, but also accentuates the importance of the Arts & Crafts. The visual importance of the aesthetic nature of the joints, pegs, and complex wood-work symbolizes the structure of the house. The structure of the house is externalized, or exploded, rather than hidden. This extravagance of support takes its origins from the elaborate joinery and framing of traditional Japanese architecture. For example the beams of the old barn were too short to span the whole room, so the builder, Mike Holmes zigzagged the beams and bolted them with a wooden dowel. He really is a master builder, if you like to call him; his phone number is 406/425-0743 Lakefork Builders.

$ 2,265,000