modern rustic house design — The Landing at Whitefish

By this point, Rob had become the official architect for The Landing and with the decision to nix the hangar house, he finally had the direction he needed to get to work on designing a home. We decided a hangar would ultimately still be necessary, but it would be a separate structure on the land to be built later. We had to go back to the drawing board. But this time, Rob pushed us to come up with a design theme to help better filter all of our visual inspirations before going any further. A harder homework assignment than I thought… Was it to be modern mountain? The contemporary-meets-cozy vibe of the Modern Farmhouse style had elements we liked, but that wasn’t quite it. We’ve long been in love with the simplicity, elegance and beauty of Scandinavian buildings, so that seemed like a good direction to explore. But that wasn’t exactly right either.

a small sampling of our decor Book collection for research

I had been hearing about a new store just outside of town called Scout & Gather that sells antiques and home décor. And although we were still a ways from furniture shopping, I felt compelled to make a visit. As soon as I walked in the door, I called Brad to come meet me. The owner has a background in design and after she and her husband had been debating with what to do with the old farmhouse on the property they owned off Highway 40, she finally decided to open up her own shop. Its gorgeously curated with antiques that she sources from all over the country, along with fun prints, cozy pillows and textured rugs, and even some beautiful goods from local makers. They even have an outdoor stage and patio area where they throw concerts and seasonal parties for the community.

Before heading out the door and dreaming of future dining tables, we decided to pick up a few of the décor books laid out on her front display table. That night I flipped through all of them, earmarking the pages that had things I liked. In one book I found myself marking nearly every page. And there it was: Modern Rustic.