Finding The Flow
FULL-SERVICE DESIGN WITH BECK & ENGLE
by Cassidy Mantor
Photos: Laura Bruschke
Builder : Mountain Luxury Homes Mike Gibson
Architect: Berg Design
Stacey Beck and Amanda Engle both call Park City home. They are the owners and principals of Beck & Engle, a full-service interior design firm creating beautifully curated spaces that enhance their clients’ relationships with nature. Beck & Engle speaks the local vernacular and understands just how important it is to unite a home’s indoor and outdoor living areas. By prioritizing this flow, their homes celebrate the quintessential characteristics of an authentic Park City lifestyle.
Both Beck and Engle are talented interior designers and passionate learners. Their keen eye for design translates to an exceptional ability to craft a delightful process for their clients. Their work is beautiful and yet it would be doing them an injustice to solely focus on their aesthetic results. Holistically speaking, one of the most valuable components of working with the firm is how they gracefully balance driving the design project forward with the memorable experiences they deliver. It feels good to collaborate with them. They make the design process fun.
Pictured left to right: Moses, Stacey Beck, Amanda Engle, & Griff.
“We are involved in every decision so we remain connected with the client.”
–Amanda Engle, Beck & Engle
The firm’s goal is to approach every project in a highly collaborative manner, creating a safe space where builder, architect, and client can share ideas and create together. Their main priority is ensuring that the client feels comfortable and guided through the process and doesn’t become overwhelmed with the number of decisions it takes to build a new home. Beck & Engle is growing at a healthy rate, but unlike other firms where the client experience becomes separated from the owner or principals as they become busier, the firm takes pride in working alongside their clients through the entire process. “We are involved in every decision so we remain connected with the client,” Engle says.
In the age of Zoom and internet accessibility, it’s easy to dilute an in-person experience. Engle likens working with them to being in an artist’s studio while they work. She says, “Developing an authentically intimate relationship with each client fuels our work. Our clients create along with us as we build their homes.” This multifaceted approach results in a complete unit that allows the interiors to speak to the exterior and vice versa – homes that feel authentically real with their clients’ personalities woven throughout.
“The architecture in Park City and surrounding areas blends indoors and outdoors so living spaces will have the same feeling whether they’re inside or outside.”
–Stacey Beck, Beck & Engle
The firm actively collaborates with architects, builders, and homeowners so that their full service includes not just the interior spaces but also the design of the whole home. “The architecture in Park City and surrounding areas blends indoors and outdoors so living spaces will have the same feeling whether they’re inside or outside,” Beck says. “Tongue and groove ceilings will run into soffits in the roofline so there is one plane.” The newest homes are designed as one space, and to best honor the architecture, it makes sense for one design firm to work on all spaces to enhance their flow. Their ability to orchestrate the complete package means their homes have a relatable energy. Unlike a trend that people may recognize because they’ve seen it 100 times online, Beck & Engle’s spaces exude an authenticity that is as original as their clients are unique.
“A large part of our job is to understand how people live their lives and cultivate a new perspective that helps them live the way they want. When you’re creating and improving yourself every day, you want your home to rejuvenate you and help you find balance.”
–Amanda Engle, Beck & Engle
Enjoyable Design
“Our job is to make the process easy and enjoyable for the client and our team, and also for the architect and builder,” Beck shares. With many years of experience in the industry, Beck & Engle routinely manages projects in Park City as well as farther away, from their clients’ second and third homes in Napa, California, to Nashville, Tennessee, and points in between. Working with them is a joyful experience. With systems in place that keep calendars on track and communication flowing, creativity thrives.
A recent trip to Ireland illustrates the nuances that Beck and Engle are attuned to. For Beck, Ireland felt like her childhood. “The rock walls, herbs, plantings, and greenery reminded me of my grandmother’s garden,” Engle shares. “Everything felt very alive and nutrient-rich. Here in Park City, we have that growth in the spring but it’s much dryer, so I became aware of an unexercised sense of smell.”
They stayed in castles with incredible grounds. Beck found inspiration from the textures, sharing, “Ireland was so raw and beautiful. The different colors and balance of topography are everything we take inspiration from. Mountains were made of lush greens but also had deep, dark contrasting stone. It was an interesting dichotomy of glamorous and ornamental interiors that offered tons of symmetry with the moldings and fireplaces carved out of stone.”
Just like in Park City, nature was everywhere in Ireland. Engle explains, “We draw inspiration from our clientele, and in Ireland there was a common personality trait where people were willing to get into the dirt, work with their hands, and exercise grit in their craft.” That pride in where they came from and what they overcame in their history – from potato famine to Viking invasion – resonated for Beck & Engle. “There was a sense of total ownership over their land and how they lived there. Their homes were part of their souls and would belong to their families for many generations to come,” Beck shares. That observation sheds light on how Beck & Engle’s design plays on subtleties that are integral to their clients’ identities. Their work enriches their clients’ relationships with their homes, designing the most personal sanctuaries that clients treasure.
“A large part of our job is to understand how people live their lives and cultivate a new perspective that helps them live the way they want,” Engle says. “When you’re creating and improving yourself every day, you want your home to rejuvenate you and help you find balance.” To make spaces that promote feelings of comfort and safety, Beck & Engle considers their clients’ histories, analyzing what kind of spaces they need to thrive with partners, children, and multiple generations.
SKYRIDGE: PREMIER
PARK CITY LIFESTYLE
Located across from Park City’s Deer Valley Resort and lakeside on the Jordanelle River sits SkyRidge, a 670-acre fine mountain living community with amenities including an equestrian center, clubhouses, and golf courses, along with dedicated miles of hiking, biking, and horse trails. The property offers premier homesites with panoramic views and preserved open spaces, and Beck & Engle recently completed a new home in the community.
“The layout of this house is really efficient,” Beck enthusiastically shares. It’s a modern home from Berg Design Studio with hints of mid-century design and industrial elements that was built by Mountain Luxury Homes. “It’s a perfect combination of design influences without one of those styles being too heavy,” Engle adds. “The house is a mix of plaster and steel with beautiful textured hardwood to soften it and Luxeview windows that face the Jordanelle as well as Deer Valley.” As one of the first homes to be completed in SkyRidge, this is a beautiful expression of the caliber of design that this community will embrace.
“We didn’t have to overindulge with the interiors to make the home feel completely whole – the view is already such a core presence in the home.”
–Stacey Beck, Beck & Engle
With incredible natural views, Beck & Engle took an intentional approach to enhance the indoor/outdoor feel in the living room, kitchen, and dining room. “We didn’t have to overindulge with the interiors to make the home feel completely whole – the view is already such a core presence in the home,” Beck explains.
To unite the exterior and interior design, Beck & Engle focused on creating a lounge space so the homeowners could admire the view and also relate to each other while dining. “Our client loved the social feeling of the Stein Eriksen outdoor fire pit, so we drew inspiration from how that space allows you to pull up a chair and have a meal and glass of wine with your friends after skiing,” Beck shares.
In addition to outdoor fire pits and fire walls within railings, outdoor kitchens are extremely important in Beck & Engle’s work. Clients are investing in their grill and outdoor kitchen components, with Engle offering examples from appliances like Argentinian rotisserie grills to bar seating and pass-through windows with countertops on each side. “When you have accordion or pocket doors and pass through windows, the patio instantly becomes an extension of the living room,” she adds.
“The house is a mix of plaster and steel with beautiful textured hardwood to soften it and Luxeview windows that face the Jordanelle as well as Deer Valley.”
–Amanda Engle, Beck & Engle
Designing for indoor/outdoor living is intuitive for Beck & Engle. “People move to Park City and the surrounding areas because they want to play outdoors. They come for the mountains and to interact with nature,” Engle observes. ”The architecture is driven by that lifestyle, and the in-to-out feel is what people desire.” Beck & Engle’s homes prioritize that feeling. “A panoramic view is incorporated into all of the homes we do,” Beck shares. “You walk in and the views are already part of the architecture and interior, and it’s a large portion of the Park City lifestyle, along with lots of garage space and mudroom space, multiple deck and patio locations, firepits, and outdoor lap pools.”
Spa centers are another way Beck & Engle looks at weaving Park City’s lifestyle into homes. “After a day of playing hard skiing, trail running, and mountain biking, people need to recharge at home and are looking for that quality of life,” Beck says. The team works with infrared saunas and cold plunges to bring the spa experience into the home.
”The architecture is driven by that lifestyle, and the in-to-out feel is what people desire.”
–Amanda Engle, Beck & Engle
“Whether it’s a remodel or a new build, design is a problem-solving process where we’re serving you through your space. We make one move and then figure out how that affects the space and make another move until we’ve achieved what we’re seeking.”
–Amanda Engle, Beck & Engle
FINDING THE BALANCE
Just like the Park City lifestyle involves both effort and ease, Beck & Engle’s clients benefit from the designers’ synergistic relationship. Lighting is one area where their dialogue comes into play. Engle could be considering a living room chandelier, and Beck will come in and offer suggestions that fill in the blanks and round out the design. “We can understand the intention and it’s easy for us to tap in and collaborate,” Beck says. “You can’t go at it alone. It takes a village to create something great, so it’s wonderful to have a second set of eyes from someone we know is speaking the same language.”
“We can understand the intention and it’s easy for us to tap in and collaborate. You can’t go at it alone. It takes a village to create something great, so it’s wonderful to have a second set of eyes from someone we know is speaking the same language.”
–Stacey Beck, Beck & Engle
Their multifaceted approach to creating spaces means that if one is addressing a design challenge, the other might be able to dive into the details to help them arrive at a solution together. Engle says, “Whether it’s a remodel or a new build, design is a problem-solving process where we’re serving you through your space. We make one move and then figure out how that affects the space and make another move until we’ve achieved what we’re seeking.”
When they’re not hard at work in Park City or traveling for clients, Beck and Engle are on the trails with their dogs. Moses is an English Cream Retriever puppy, and Griff is a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. This summer, Griff will get a puppy sibling. Between designing dog baths and inviting their clients to their Park City studio to collaborate, the designers fondly acknowledge that their office is a “puppy show.” It’s a perfect way to sum up what it’s like to work with Beck & Engle. They are honed in on the things that need to be taken seriously and leave room for fun. Their most special ideas take shape in that space intentionally created to experience life.
