When Henry David Thoreau lived at Walden Pond in the mid-nineteenth century to pen a memoir by the same name, he probable didn’t imagine outfitting his homely cabin with a custom-designed billiards room and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Luckily, popular architect Annabelle Selldorf did the work for him.
Image Via Via Walden House/Compass
Selldorf is the mastermind behind the Walden House, a multi-million-dollar mountain mansion nestled in Vail, Colorado, whose design was inspired by Thoreau’s book Walden; or, Life in the Woods. The sprawling, exceedingly modern home, sits on a vast lot overlooking prairies and mountains. And a pond, of course.
Image Via Selldorf Architects
Thoreau was a transcendentalist who wrote about the joys and fulfillment of self-sufficiency within nature and harmony with one’s surroundings. His poetic work stresses the importance of simple living with heavy meditation, and reveals the obstacles he faced with harsh neighbors and weather while attempting to live entirely off the land.
Image Via Walden House/Compass
As impressive as the final product of Selldorf’s Walden House looks, she sought to emulate the simplicity, and the idea of “simple living,” of life at the historical Walden Pond.
The house is 10,515 square feet, according to Architectural Digest. Most of the rectangular house sits low to the ground except for a three-storey tower sitting incongruously on one end. The Walden House is cut with dark wood paneling cloisters leading to a surprising number of rooms that feel intimate for such a large space.
Image Via Architectural Digest
If she had to choose, Selldorf revealed in her interview that she would choose the study on the ground floor as her favorite room in the house because “it has a sense of intimacy but with a perfectly framed view of nature.” The house sits on 70 acres of pristine prairie land.
Image Via Selldorf Architects
The Walden House, which was inspired by the famous cabin in Concord, Massachusetts, is currently on the market for $29 million. Just like Thoreau would have wanted.
For more information on the Walden House, visit the Compass listing here or visit Selldorf’s portfolio here.
Featured Image Via Walden House/Compass.