Aging Well

The first home to marry form and function in Jackson Hole also happens to be (we think) the valley’s longest continuously occupied home. At 118 years old, it has lessons to teach.

Make a statement. There are a handful of other two-story log structures in the valley, but none with a hip roof. “The others all have steeply pitched gabled roofs,” Dubbe says. Gabled roofs are far easier and faster to build. “The second story, but even more so, the choice to do a hip roof is a marked departure from building a basic, rudimentary shelter, which is what the other structures in the valley at this time were. The crew that built this was motivated by something beyond creating something just good enough to get them through a Wyoming winter. There was a desire to create a statement piece in their own humble way,” Dubbe says.

Don’t over-design. “One has to squint or blur their vision to see the literal association between this house and the homes of today,” Dubbe says. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the effort. “Sometimes homes today can have too much design for design’s sake,” Dubbe says. “This home is utilitarian. It was designed for function and comfort. It is very clear it didn’t come from a trained architect, but was built for personal needs.”

Their focus wasn’t simply to build sufficient shelter for their family, but also to build something of scale and character.
—Historic preservation architect Kurt Dubbe on the 118-year-old Wright-Clark house on Fish Creek Road

Last winter, we connected with the home’s owner, 88-year-old Skip Wright-Clark, and, over chocolate chip cookies (made by Skip himself) and coffee in his colorful kitchen, we chatted with him and historic-preservation architect Kurt Dubbe about the home.

Details make a difference. It is unknown who built this house. “Details like the hand-hewn, saddle-notched corners make it evident that whoever built this, their skill set surpassed that of the local ranchers, farmers, and folks just scraping by, though,” Dubbe says. And remember, there were no power tools in the early 1900s. When Skip recalls his first several decades at the ranch, “We never had a power tool,” he says. “We built everything by hand.” He jokes that he might be the only Exeter graduate who has sharpened a plowshare by hand.

As eye-catching as its two stories and a hip—as opposed to a gable—roof are today, in the early 1900s, such forms had never before been seen in Jackson Hole. When the home was added to the list of historic structures in Teton County in 2012, it was noted that “the main house was the most imposing residential structure in the county for a good while.” Dubbe, a founding principal at Dubbe Moulder Architects, says this might be the first home in the valley that wasn’t built purely for shelter. Jackson Hole settlers at the time had only a couple of months to build themselves a home that would provide shelter from Wyoming’s harsh winters. “If you’re building two stories and doing a complicated roof, you have the benefit of time—you’re not in a hurry,” Dubbe says. “Their focus wasn’t simply to build sufficient shelter for their family, but also to build something of scale and character.”

Have fun with wallpaper. The wallpaper in a downstairs powder room dates from the home’s 1966 remodel. “We took the house to the logs and built it out in a modern way,” Skip says. He doesn’t remember choosing the wallpaper’s pattern but jokes that “with four daughters and horses,” it was likely an easy decision.

Homes should reflect their owners. Architects and interior designers today strive to create homes that reflect the lives of their occupants. This happens organically when you live in a house for more than half a century. “What is so beautiful about this home is that it represents Skip to a T,” Dubbe says. “From the collection of books to models of planes and other warcraft and personal memorabilia—it’s the story of his life, and that wasn’t written overnight.” Much of the memorabilia is related to hockey, which Skip played at Phillips Exeter Academy and for decades in Jackson Hole. In 1977, he helped found the valley’s first club hockey team and, in 2023, he was one of three of the inaugural class of inductees into the Moose Hall of Fame for his contributions to hockey in the valley.

Houses are meant to be lived in. Dubbe says that the fact that this home has been continuously occupied has gone a long way toward preserving it. “An unoccupied home is much more vulnerable to deterioration,” he says. “Here, if there was something that needed attention, it could be taken care of right away. A small thing unattended can grow into a major problem.”

Built circa 1906 by the Van Winkle family as the main house on their Van Winkle Ranch, and bought by Skip’s maternal grandmother Elena B. Hunt in 1929, this house is the longest continuously inhabited home in Jackson Hole we have been able to find (118 years), and it is included on Teton County’s list of historical buildings. Skip himself has lived here for more than half of this time. He first visited it in 1948, when he was 12, and has lived here full-time since 1959, when he moved out to help with the ranch, renamed the H.S. Ranch by his grandmother, while she recovered from a stroke.

Consider keeping it natural. The fact that the locally harvested lodgepole pine logs this home is made from were left untreated is a major factor in its longevity. A common practice at the time, this home was built was to apply boiled linseed oil to the logs every year or every other year. This trapped a lot of moisture in the logs and, over time, accelerated their deterioration. “Allowing these logs to breathe and to self-drain and to air out is a good thing,” Dubbe says. “That is one of the reasons it has survived as it has to this day.”

The same material can present different characteristics. These logs are much smaller in diameter than the logs used in most log homes built in the valley between the 1980s and the early 2000s. This is because smaller logs were easier to transport, especially when the transportation available was literal horsepower, and also because small logs were what was available nearby. “I’m sure these logs were all harvested from the Wilson Faces,” Skip says. “You wanted to get stuff as locally as possible.” (The Wilson Faces are just above the ranch.) Dubbe says, “The smaller-diameter logs have a different character than today’s larger logs, which are grown at lower elevations and brought here by truck. They have a quaint charm to them.”

In 1966, after Mrs. Hunt died, Skip initiated the first and only remodel of the house. This included replacing the original insulation—newspapers in the walls—with a more modern material. He had three daughters who spent their summers growing up here and a fourth daughter who was raised in the house. His daughters moved out long ago, but unicorn stickers they put on windows remain.

Open spaces are good for circulation. The home’s open floor plan is similar to floor plans favored by today’s Jackson Hole homeowners, albeit for different reasons. “This open floor plan was driven by heating the home,” Dubbe says. “If you have discreet, closed-off rooms, those are more difficult to heat.” Skip remembers his grandmother never had a fireplace. “She had coal. There was coal up the Gros Ventre. There was no central heating.” Most every home now has central heating; open floor plans today are popular because they encourage the people, and pets, within a house to engage with each other.

Celebrate family history. There are family photos in every room of the house, including many of Skip’s grandmother, who originally bought the house. “She was a New York debutante who, after divorcing her first husband, a lawyer, was running around Europe with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Earnest Hemingway,” Skip says. She first came to Wyoming in the late 1920s as a guest at the JY Ranch. “She was done with her second husband, a French man, and her aunt advised her to go to Wyoming to initiate divorce proceedings,” Skip says. Despite her upbringing, Mrs. Hunt was not fancy. “We all ate in this house at a tin table,” Skip says. She was wholly capable and adventurous though. She founded the H.S. Ranch with partner Gibbs Scott, but after their relationship soured, she carried on managing and running the ranch herself. At age 67, she soloed to get her pilot’s license. “She was one of a kind,” Skip says.

“To see a historic structure in its lived-in state is a unique experience,” Dubbe says. “It is much more common to see historic structures in a museum setting, where they are behind glass and overly curated.” It is not only a unique experience, but also a learning opportunity. Here’s to bringing some of the lessons learned from this remarkable piece of lived-in history into your own Jackson Hole home.