When nature takes control

Kitzbühel | Issue 54 | Winter 2023

The team revolving around Bernd Gruber recently completed a single-family house in Kitzbühel whose interior design was based on internal human values and emotions – and that’s what made it an authentic home.

The house, which unfolds over several floors, playfully utilizes unusual angles and vistas of the surrounding landscapes. To start with, the entrance foyer (precisely one floor below which, a wine cellar and cigar room are housed) is intentionally kept on the darkish side since it gives way to a private well-being area, through which you then access the outdoor areas with a spacious terrace and outdoor swimming pool. The most astounding views out into nature can be enjoyed at their extraordinary height in the uppermost part of the house, with its adjoining gallery: the living room is designed like a loft, with a free-standing kitchen of metal-look and adjacent dining zone, plus an elegant seating arrangement in front of the open fireplace boasting an impressively large glass front which, together with the terrace, extends beyond the limits of the room itself.

Apart from the beauty of the surrounding scenery, nature itself provides the leading light in designing the house’s furnishings: natural stone, natural wood dominate the individual rooms, combined with elegant metal appearances and stylish textiles alongside fluffy carpets. This unusual galaxy of materials extends over all floors, from the entrance foyer to the roof truss overhead, from bedrooms with en-suite baths to the library and private studios all the way to the children’s bedrooms. Every single item harmonizes with the whole, conceived in deepest designer imagination and feeling for interior spaces by Bernd Gruber’s artistic team who from the start had their own topmost priority: create a space for feeling alive which can draw a family together, keep it grounded and emanate cosy togetherness across every square centimetre.