One of the early things that I told Heidi Callier when I worked on this house was that I wanted grandma-chic. I desired the burst of patterns and fabrics and textures, says Kendall Jenner, referring to a decorating urge that has come to be discreetly a comfort in a word.
Established as an escape, or in Los Angeles, the Wyoming mountain home of Jenner actually looks less like a vacation house and more like a facility set up to perform a ceremony occasionally: long weekends, additional guests and evenings where everyone fits. She tells a story in her tour of why a ground-up build is oddly personal: One of the most unique aspects of ground-up builds is that you are working on the house so extensively and you are imagining spending time with friends. You are fantasizing on what kind of nights and laughs and conversations you are going to get into. The atmosphere is carried over into the design, which is smooth at the points where it should be, battered at the points where it matters, and covered with overlay in a manner that gives the impression that a life is already unfolding.
That conservativeness is most evident in the social heart of the house. The layout is anchored by an open-plan kitchen, which allows focusing on cooking, talking, and lingering in one view and extending into the family room in a natural manner. The surfaces create a purposeful harmony: the clean certainty of Calacatta marble and a large piece of wood island against the sort of detail that makes a room look inherited: the old china, the old copper, the old fabric that softens sharp lines. The house is not using the patina as an ornament, but as ambiance.
The “grandma chic” label can be said as a one-note sound but in this case is more of a method. It is based on the juxtaposition new bones and old references, clean planes and busy patterns, thus the rooms do not feel themed, but rather collected. The interior designer, Heidi Caillier, talks of her priorities in the construction: In my case it is about adding a lot of texture to the walls and then introducing some interesting ceiling details to bring it down so that the oversized windows are balanced. The architectural decisions enable the elevated colour and print to fall as inhabitable, not dramatic.
The premise is easy to comprehend in the living room because of a statement sectional. The sofa was covered with 50 yards of the Lee Jofa Hollyhock Handblock print, a pattern of floral which transforms nostalgia into period. I am more than pleased with that couch, Jenner says. “I have never doubted the fabric.” It is the type of decision that does not require any kind of overstyling; when one item is so full of character, then it makes the rest of the room breath.
The kitchen on the other hand employs restraint in the design. Jenner maintained the palette quite neutral and depended on certain jolts red and white checkered floors and a blue range to make it light. A fireplace fits into one corner, which Jenner attributes to that very: “the fireplace in the kitchen was a Kris Jenner idea.” With the mountain environment where half of the year is cold weather, it creates a less work-like and more of a place to stay environment.
The most up to date detail of the house can be the way it addresses the “grandma chic” as elastic instead of fixed. The overall trend continues to change in 2026: designers refer to the elements of lace, quilts, braided carpets, and a revival of silver-colored items on the table as methods of introducing a softer touch and ritual without losing functionality. The version by Jenner is based on the same concept: a room can remain useful and at the same time experience the storytelling as long as the combination is not accidental.
Finally, what makes the retreat attractive is not the name but the result: a house that looks like it was designed, but it is prepared: prepared in case of muddy boots, unexpected guests and nights that extend beyond the last log in the fire.
