NEWLY RENOVATED WEST END SOCIAL AT ASPEN MEADOWS RESORT EVOKES THE ARTWORK OF HERBERT BAYER.
WHEN RESTAURANT DESIGN POWERHOUSE BENTEL & BENTEL took on the renovation of the lounge, dining room and reception area at Aspen Meadows Resort, designers discovered that the project required a study in art history. Set on the Aspen Institute’s 40-acre campus, Aspen Meadows Resort was designed in the Bauhaus style by Herbert Bayer between 1953 and 1973.
The modern leather wing chairs from Italian furniture maker Poltrona Frau are a nod to Herbert Bayer’s organic sculptural art. PHOTO: JASON DEWEY
Lead architect Peter Bentel and his team immersed themselves in all things Bayer. “We spent time at the Resnick Center, walked the campus and read books on Bayer, studying five or six major periods of his work,” Bentel says.
The result is West End Social, a reimagined restaurant and lounge with unobstructed 270-degree mountain views. The renovation created a more welcoming experience for guests checking into Aspen Meadows’ accommodations. Bentel & Bentel collaborated on the project with property manager Salamander Collection and resort owner the Aspen Institute.
“Bayer was designing with the German architectural idea of Existenzminimum,” Bentel says. “There’s a real efficiency and simplicity to the architecture. Bayer thought you should be able to enjoy the views and nature and that the buildings shouldn’t get in your way.” Precast concrete beams, concrete-block walls painted white and copious amounts of white sheetrock defined the original space. “It was straightforward, but the building had lost the Bauhaus thread,” Bentel says.
The Bayer color palette—blue, red, yellow and green—plays out overhead and underfoot. Tucked between concrete T beams in the ceiling, panels of acoustic material take color cues from a 1949 abstract painting by Bayer titled “Untitled Formation.” “It was an asymmetrical composition of rectangles combined with gradations of light,” Bentel says. “We wanted to link to Bayer’s work and interpret it in an architectural way.”
Those colors appear in the furniture’s upholstery, with banquettes fashioned in green and red and chairs in blue. It was a subtle way of infusing Bayer into the renovation while warming up the space.
In researching Bayer’s work, Bentel & Bentel discovered two 1972 rug designs that the artist crafted for the Atlantic Richfield Oil Company headquarters. They used those designs to create custom rugs. A geometric pattern plays out in the dining room rug, while the carpet in front of the lounge’s wood-burning fireplace echoes Bayer’s abstract depiction of looking skyward through a grove of golden aspens. “We interpreted it differently but still kept the spirit of his original design,” Bentel says.
Designers employed natural materials to connect to the surrounding environment and add warmth to the space. Wood played a significant role in the redesign: Aspenwood cut with a quarter-saw technique gives life to wall paneling with a sense of flickering movement. The focal design element in the lounge is a brick wall and a fireplace fashioned in Colorado marble sourced from the Roaring Fork Valley.
Pastry chef Sara Figueiredo’s Mont Blanc pavlova. PHOTO: BY CHRIS COUNCIL
West End Social offers shareable plates inspired by the Rocky Mountains from chef de cuisine Rachel Saxton, who most recently had been cheffing at Michelin-starred Bosq in Aspen. The menu will use seasonal and locally sourced ingredients. “Each dish is focused on using as much Colorado produce as possible and using approachable and recognizable flavors with a bit of a chef ’s twist,” says Saxton, who’s working with resort executive chef J.D. Baldridge. Global flavors highlight and complement each dish. “I look at how flavors pop and how the dish will travel on your taste buds,” she says. Executive pastry chef Sara Figueiredo, who perfected her craft at Gravity Haus in Vail, will head up the dessert program with plates that highlight local farmers and foragers.
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