George Gund III and Miller Ream

Massive timber trusses dominate the great room with soaring ceilings, exposed structural beams, and corbels creating impressive volume; the architecture has genuine weight and scale despite its earth-sheltered profile.

Local timber throughout, travertine floors from Livingston, exposed wood beams and trusses, stone fireplace, prairie sod roof, terra-cotta planters, and Navajo rugs create an entirely tactile, natural material palette with no cold surfaces.

Interiors are restrained with breathing room — a Russell Chatham painting, some Navajo rugs, the fireplace mantel, and sparse furnishings; the architecture itself is the primary object, not layered collections.

The sod-roof concept references pioneer homesteads and Stevens explicitly cites 'pioneer sod-roofed houses' as inspiration, but the execution is thoroughly contemporary with clerestory windows, modern glazing, and open-plan living.

This is new construction with new furnishings; while the materials are honest and local (quarried travertine, local timber, carpentry by a local angling guide), nothing here has accumulated over time — it arrived together.

The layout consists of two master suites for two families connected by a single great room that functions as living, dining, and kitchen, suggesting a balance between private retreat and shared social space for the two partner families.

Despite the impressive timber structure, the sod roof, worn-looking natural materials, ranch setting, and the article's emphasis on blending into the landscape and building paradise for hunting and fishing all signal a deeply casual, lived-in ethos.

Interior design credited to Shari Stevens with carefully placed furnishings, a Ralph Lauren rug, and composed sight lines through the great room, but the overall feeling remains organic and site-driven rather than editorially styled.

The house is deliberately hidden — 'We wanted the house to be private and able to blend into the countryside' — buried in berms with a sod roof, representing wealth that explicitly does not want to be seen, an anti-theatrical statement.