I have generations of family in Colorado, and I spent most summers growing up there, so I have always been aware of the many celebrities with mountain homes around the state. Yet one stands above all the rest: Ralph Lauren’s home just outside Telluride, Colorado.
I first saw his home featured on Oprah (before doing a deep dive on every design article I could find), and it was true to his designing roots, from the house to the teepees. As a second home to New York City, Lauren bought the property over twenty years ago to find a new kind of luxury in quiet and space. In Ouray County, at the tip of southwest Colorado, it is dominated by a mountain peak in the San Juan mountain range, known by locals as Mount Baldy. Ralph Lauren bought, developed and perfected this magical place, named after himself and his wife Ricky RRL Ranch. It is not simply a ranch house but a whole self-contained world, with a collection of houses, valleys, lakes, streams and pastures; 16,000 acres of prairies, forests and rocks; herds of cattle; and diverse flora and fauna – from the Albert squirrel to the great brown bear, from Engelmann and Colorado Blue Spruces to the black-spotted, white-trunked aspens nicknamed ‘quakies’, because their leaves rustle constantly in the wind.
Passionate about all things American, Ralph Lauren has furnished and decorated the different houses on the ranch in a manner that justifies his title of ‘the man who defined American style’. Each of the five guesthouses (called cabins), the main Lodge House, the Cook House (where food is prepared and eaten) and the four giant tepees (used for entertaining) exemplify Western style in the choice of fabrics, leathers, woods, colors and objects. There are quilts and patchworks with Native-American motifs, and paintings depicting buffalo hunts. There are wide chimneys for fires of thick, crackling birch or beech logs and collections of Navaho, Sioux or Shawnee poetry. There are animal pelts, hunting trophies, Katchina dolls, antique feather headdresses, cowboy hats, multicoloured woollen ponchos and rugs from Arizona and New Mexico. Everything within these sturdy, red-cedar log cabins speaks of the region’s strong identity: its people, craftsmanship and past.
Carrie x