WHEN TALENTED PROFESSIONALS TALK, WE LISTEN.
Admit it, you have an inquiring mind, and you want to know about the team building your Sun Valley dream home. We understand the inclination. So we decided to bring you Shop Talk, conversations with the talented pros designing, building, and outfitting your homes.
“After succeeding as a small, independent painting business, I began working toward the goal of having a team environment where my management has a stake in the company as co-owners. Over time, I have hired on an amazing core of five team members and we have a staff of up to 45 employees in the high season.”
–Bob Kilmain
Bob Kilmain, Owner
Kilmain Painting
Kilmain Painting has developed a winning strategy to service their numerous and diverse clients. Their success lies in exceeding expectations in both quality and service, while remaining on budget and on time. The Kilmain team is as talented as they are knowledgeable. Their unparalleled expertise and talent allows them to consult, problem-solve, and create all kinds of interesting projects in the region. We sat down with owner Bob Kilmain to chat about work, paint, and living in the mountains.
What services do you offer?
We offer everything from deck restoration and interior faux, to epoxy floors and masonry coating. Our techniques can range from decorative and natural to casually elegant and sophisticated, depending on color choice and placement within the client’s space.
What are your goals or interests when working with a client?
Our interest is in helping every client feel comfortable in their space, whether it’s a modest 1,500 square-foot home, or a 20,000 square-foot vacation retreat.
How did you get your start in the painting business?
As a kid in Holliston, Massachusetts, I worked for my dad’s go-cart business that he hoped to pass on to me. When I told him of my desire to become a house painter, he scoffed at my vision and suggested that it wouldn’t be worth it for me to finish my last two years of college. I knew a bachelor’s degree in business would help me and I loved painting with my neighbor in the summers. I continued working with Mindy at our company called Color Your World. Two summers later, I handed my dad $44,000 in cash to pay him back for the remainder of my degree that he didn’t believe was necessary. He has since seen the results of my bigger vision for my company.
What inspired your transition from Massachusetts to Jackson Hole?
As a wrestler in high school, my skiing experience was limited to occasional weekends in New Hampshire. After an injury in a match ended my wrestling career, my parents agreed to send me to a school in Vermont for my senior year of high school, where I could pursue the itch I felt for skiing. After skiing in Vermont for five years, I came to Jackson Hole for spring break my final year of college. Much like many other people in the valley, I got hooked on skiing at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and began brainstorming about starting my own painting business here.
What makes Kilmain Painting different from other painting companies in Jackson Hole?
After succeeding as a small, independent painting business, I began working toward the goal of having a team environment where my management has a stake in the company as co-owners. Over time, I have hired on an amazing core of five team members and we have a staff of up to 45 employees in high season.
What’s the most interesting project you’ve worked on? And the largest?
Nike approached us and asked us to paint a faux brick wall with the backdrop of the Tetons for an ad campaign. That was definitely a departure from working on your typical brick and mortar structure. Our largest project to date is both the interior and exterior of the Four Seasons, which we completed within two closures in our off-seasons. It took just over two months to finish.
What has rooted you in the valley?
Watching my kids ski down the hill at the base of Snow King, I was truly affected by seeing the training and skills they were learning from their coaches. Now I coach at the Jackson Hole Ski Club, where I work with 7-to 9-year-olds.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Much like working with the kids at Ski Club, we strive to keep the business environment at Kilmain both fun and inspiring. I learned a long time ago to keep my ego out of the job. We supply the client with a beautiful backdrop and they build upon it.
“In addition to our broad range of professional services, we continue to be involved in a variety of historic preservation consulting projects locally and in our region.”
–Kurt Dubbe
Kurt Dubbe & Chris Moulder
Dubbe Moulder Architects
Dubbe Moulder Architects was created in Jackson, Wyoming, in the spring of 1996 when Kurt Dubbe and Chris Moulder merged their private practices. Since then, the firm has offered clients a broad range of professional services, including residential and commercial design, historic preser-vation, land use planning, and interiors.
Dubbe Moulder Architects understands that quality architecture is supported and complemented by excellent craftsmanship. Therefore, working effectively with talented and skillful contractors and tradesmen to achieve a client’s vision is paramount. The firm seeks to provide a space that evokes thought, entices one to explore the architecture, and seduces one to experience a space, or as the noted architect Charles Moore put it, “To create a sense of place.”
Do you have any special certifications or specialties?
In addition to the broad range of professional services that DMA provides, we continue to be involved in a variety of historic preservation consulting projects locally and in our region. Principal Kurt Dubbe, AIA has more than 35 years of preservation experience, and sits on the Teton County Historic Preservation Board, Board of Advisors for the Alliance for Historic Wyoming, Wyoming Review Board for National Register Nominations, and the Board of Advisors for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
What do you consider the most exciting and inspiring developments in architecture in history?
The development of human shelter through history as crystalized by the three Vitruvian principles of architecture: FIRMNESS, COMMODITY, and DELIGHT. Still very relevant today. And of course the apex of western architecture during the Italian Renaissance and English Classicism, primarily founded on Greek and Roman antiquity.
What words do people use to describe your work?
Memorable, creative, innovative, thoughtful, respectful, well-reasoned, unpretentious, and without the limits of any one particular style. An anonymous quote: “Style is trendy and fleeting. Bad taste is timeless.”
What is the most exciting new product or development in your field?
Innovative and creative applications of traditional building materials, both exterior and interior. And profound advancements in building performance technologies.
What building best typifies the region?
The new Grand Teton NP Visitor Center by Bohlin, Cywinski, Jackson.
How did you get your start here?
Coming from Montana, and having lived in another part of Wyoming previously, I have always been drawn to the western Rocky Mountain region. After gaining important professional experience on the East Coast, I had the opportunity to start my own practice with a client here in Jackson with whom I had worked in New York City. As with many young firms in Jackson starting at that time, I had the very good fortune of riding the wave of prosperity and progress in a growing community.
If you weren’t an architect, what would you be doing?
Builder and furniture maker.
If you could own any three pieces of art, what would they be and why?
Most any painting by Charles Russell, Maxfield Parrish, or Johan Vermeer. The sublime capture of color, texture, and feeling, all representing melody, harmony, rhythm, and form.
If you had one wish today, what would it be?
Justice, peace, and sanity for, and by, all.
What do you enjoy most about living and working where you do?
Pleasant, comfortable harmony with the environment, and the opportunity to express this in our designs and service to our clients.
I get weak in the knees over…
Listening to “Pavane for a Dead Princess” by Ravel, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” by Fairport Convention, and “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd.
