Home Sweet Home: 2180 Lighting

Photos by Brandon Mathis

HOME SWEET HOME

Redemption with a view By Joy Martin

Lynn Sims runs a hand over the smooth surface of her Brazilian granite countertops. Swirls of gray create a cosmic facade emblematic of the fusion style she picked out with the help of her son, Brian, one of the proud owners of 2180 Lighting & Design Studio on Main Avenue in Durango. She laughs at the idea that Brian would be pleased to see how clean the surface appears, especially polished in the September light pouring in from westward-facing windows.

While the waterfall countertops hold their own celestial grip on the imagination, the windows steal the show at the Sims home, on the uppermost perch of Castle Ridge west of Durango. Designed in 2018 by Reynolds Ash + Associates and completed in 2019 by Shepard Builders, the house sits squarely facing the La Plata Mountains. At 7,700 feet above sea level, it towers over Highway 160, Twin Buttes, and Hogsback Ridge. Views stretch to the far reaches of the region, with Pigeon Peak, at nearly 14,000 feet, peeking between shoulders of mesas and pines.

“We can watch lightning walk up the ridges, cross over the mountains, and onto Vallecito,” says Lynn’s husband, Carl. “Sometimes when the afternoon storms pass to our east, there’s a rainbow over town below us.”

The view also overlooks the Fort Lewis College campus, where the Simses’ Durango journey began 50 years ago. While Lynn studied history, Carl enrolled in the chemistry department. The newlyweds lived in family housing and recall gazing west to this very site, watching the sunset split the clouds. After graduating in 1972, the Simses moved away, following Carl’s career as a pioneer in analytical chemistry techniques. He holds no fewer than 53 patents in the field and, at 75 years old, still works from his office tucked in the middle of his dream home.

In October 2017, the Simses were living in Santa Rosa, California, when the Tubbs Fire encroached on their neighborhood. As they fled for their lives in the middle of the night, they grabbed what they could: Carl’s laptop, a box of Diet Coke, life-saving drugs, and a silver case that held birth certificates, titles, and other valuables.

“It took our two-story house down to two inches in a night,” says Lynn, as she rifles through a shoebox holding the charred remains of her jewelry, forks, coins, and bits of agate that her sons used to collect with Carl on camping trips. “We lost everything. It made moving easy.”

With their sense of humor intact, the Simses wasted no time regrouping. Long before the fire, a friend had taken photos of their personal possessions to back up their insurance policy. Carl spent every night of a year detailing what was lost and how much it cost. Bolstered by their insurance claim, the couple decided it was time to join their sons in Durango. When the couple saw the lot on top of Castle Ridge for sale, they drove up and fell in love all over again.

“I knew the second we got out of the car that this was it,” says Lynn. “It was either going to be our house or the Sims Family Camping Spot.”

While the builders got to work con-

structing a 30-by-30-foot carbon concrete grounding structure to counter lightning strikes (15 lightning rods don the gables as well), Lynn sat down with her son Brian and 2180 co-owner Rick Klatt’s wife, Heather, to choose tile, lighting, flooring, and fixtures for the 3,400-square-foot home.

With natural light flooding most of the space, the lighting elements throughout the house are elegant and understated. A three-layered lighting system illuminates the eye-catching countertops in the kitchen, where Lynn was also thrilled to incorporate Hubbardton Forge chandeliers, handcrafted in Vermont. The three bathrooms feature tile just as dramatic as the kitchen’s, with a warm-brown Fantasy granite for the sink and whirlpool splashes and bronzite for the guest bathroom.

“I wanted it to be livable,” says Lynn. “It was important that I didn’t have to worry about it for the grandkids.”

The Simses’ two grandchildren aren’t the only ones who enjoy sliding in their socks across the indestructible wood floors. Gorgeous golden timber, carefully hewn from nine layers of engineered oak, is warmed by in-floor heating powered by the 13.5 kilowatts of solar generated on the rooftops.

Obviously, fire prevention was a priority in the design of the home. Besides ensuring that the structure sits 25 feet from the cliff edge and all trees have been removed from within the 100-foot radius of the house, other FEMA-approved details provide additional protection against fires.

Carl and Lynn both inherited legacy furniture from their parents, none of which survived the Tubbs Fire. They didn’t have mementos from the boys’ childhoods or Christmas ornaments for the tree. Lynn’s sister sent the family a box a week full of fine, fun things to fill their new home: a vase here, a cozy sweater there, family pictures. Lynn found joy perusing the art galleries in downtown Durango and brought home a few decorative Navajo rugs. As the house slowly gathers new family memories and relics, Carl and Lynn say the enchantment is already there.

“There isn’t a time I don’t walk down the hall toward the mountains and think ‘holy moly,’” says Lynn. “It’s magical.”

Co-owned and operated by Brian Sims and Rick Klatt, 2180 Lighting & Design Studio, formerly known as McCormick Tile & Stone, has been serving Durango for nearly two decades. Located at – you guessed it – 2180 Main Avenue, this tile, lighting, and design studio is artistically focused and customer-service oriented. For more information, visit 2180durangodesign.com.