“Dembergh is grateful,” says partner Don Frank. “We have been allowed to become the craftsmen that most craftsmen dream of becoming because our clients have allowed us to grow, to learn and become masters of refined vision and design. We thank them. They have allowed us to live here, fulfill our professional goals and provide a lifestyle for our families. We hold that relationship in very high regard.”
From its founding in 1980 in Sun Valley, Idaho, the firm struck a singular silhouette in the industry. Founder Peter Dembergh channeled the diligence and drive he developed as an Ivy League student and a Navy officer into the realm of building residential projects in a ski town. “He had a stand-and-deliver work ethic,” Frank says. “You first had to perform and produce, and then you played as a reward.” In 1988, Dembergh migrated to Jackson at the introduction of a Sun Valley architect. “When that project was done, the community recognized that a serious guy had arrived—a guy with the capacity to run an orderly, organized, predictable and professional job site.” That ethos endures amid the many changes experienced by the firm and the industry at large.
Then, as now, Dembergh was committed to using the best materials
and the best methods available. In the ’80s, that meant constructing traditional log and timber homes. Now, a mountain modern aesthetic prevails—place-inspired exteriors sheathing lighter interiors. Methods have evolved as well: To start, changes are no longer scrawled in pencil on two-by-fours. Today, every tradesperson has an iPad, and clients are updated in real time—all to optimize time and money.
“As the years and decades have evolved, we followed the design community,” Frank says. “We need to be research nimble: finding the best sustainable materials, learning from the consultants who define cutting-edge building science—all toward assembling homes that are durable, beautiful and comfortable to live in, but also sustainable.” Frank, with his partners, Ed Harrison, Bryan Korpi and Mike Prichard, are committed to the distinctive culture at Dembergh. “We are servants of our clients’ best interests. Think of a custom home builder as an R&D department,” he says. “We want to be innovative, and we want to improve our capacity to serve. The most important part of that is to be humble enough to know there’s always more to learn; collaborative enough to listen; and confident enough to provide our repository of three decades of experience to guide our clients to not only spend their time and money well, but to participate in a way that gets them from the idea of building a home in Jackson Hole to settling into a fulfilling life with our community of families in the valley.”
