The Penthouses at Manor Vail, located at the base of Golden Peak at Vail and across Gore Creek from Ford Park, is an $84 million redevelopment of a 40-year old original Vail property. The project is highlighted by:
 
The architecture of the entire complex was upgraded with new stone, stucco and siding, and new shingle and metal roofing. New wood and steel balcony railings throughout open up the views of the property, and from the units to Vail Mountain and to the Gore Range. The new penthouses feature high-end finishes including custom designed millwork throughout the units, granite and marble finishes in the baths, and walnut flooring. The new landscaped park is along the path connecting Vail Village to Ford Park and adds new open space to the property. Also adding to the public experience is an expanded exterior terrace to Fitzwilliams' Lounge, with new direct stair access to the Ford Park path.

Brian Sipes served as Project Manager, Architect of Record and Designer for the project, while at Zehren and Associates, from the project conception through completion. His role included securing the entitlements and design approval from the town of Vail. Manor Vail was one of the first projects to achieve this approval and paved the way for later projects such as the Four Seasons and Solaris. The construction phase for this project was extremely challenging. Numerous unforeseen conditions were uncovered during construction requiring the team to be agile and very responsive. Most of these were not insignificant and included the replacement of an existing firewall between two of the buildings that turned out to be missing. Discovered 5 months before completion the solution required cutting an 8' wide slot through the building from basement to roof in order to erect scaffold and then a new CMU firewall.

Client: East West Partners
Reference:  Kirk Johnston (970.390.8018)
General Contractor:  GE Johnson Construction Company
Reference:  Todd Raper (303.579.1619)
Completion Date: 2009
Construction Cost: $92 million

Manor Vail buildings D, E and F prior to the renovation.  Compare this image with the one above and below.  Previously guests had to park and venture outside to get from building to building and from units to the lobby.  Staying on the third floor meant hauling luggage and ski or golf equipment up non-rated stairways as there were no elevators on the project.  Adding to the complexity and puzzle-like nature of the renovation was the fact that none of the buildings shared a common datum with as much as three vertical feet separating the same floor in adjacent buildings.

The surface parking lot was eliminated and replaced with a landscaped park on top of a two-story underground parking garage.  Pedestrian traffic to Ford Park and the Betty Ford Alpine Garden was re-routed through this park and it has become a public amenity (see below).

A view of Manor Vail from the Golden Peak base area shows the rather modest stature and dated design of the project prior to the renovation.  A driving factor for the design was to preserve community views of the Gore Range and develop new luxury units in scale with the existing project and the surrounding neighborhood.  A lengthy entitlement process required several design tweaks and numerous 3-dimensional modeling studies from selected points to show how views would be preserved.  To avoid dominating Vail Valley Drive right at the entry to the Golden Peak ski lift area and to avoid interrupting views from existing units, new units were not built on top of most of building A.

In this construction phase aerial photograph the original roof of building A (foreground left) that was not covered with new units can clearly be seen along with the new development across the remainder of the project.  One of the challenges presented by the project was that the existing top floor unit owners would not allow the character and ceiling of their units to be altered.  The existing trapezoidal windows had to be accommodated yet visually diminished in the final design.

A rendering of one of the new end unit penthouses is seen here above and a photograph of a model unit is below.

This is a concept elevation showing the transition from the existing building A units, which were not covered, and the new units over the remainder of the project.  Because the new units were constructed with a completely independent structural system, the locations of supporting columns were a critical coordination item.  Columns were located to avoid impacts to existing unit windows.  At the transition point shown above, the unit was required to end as shown to preserve existing views from the units to the north yet the columns had to be located at the area clad in stone.  This resulted in an 800 sf roof patio with panoramic views of Golden Peak skiing and down valley sunsets for this particular unit; an unheard of amenity in Vail.

This photograph shows the main entry to the Manor Vail Lobby prior to the renovation.  The lobby and all of the public amenities are cut off from the residential buildings to the north by the service access lane, which also serves as an underwhelming public path to Ford Park.

The sequence below shows the design development concept process and a photograph of the finished entry taken during the waning days of construction.  There is nearly four feet of vertical elevation difference between the lobby level and the ground floor of the adjacent building D.  To maintain full accessibility, a bridge was created that connected the lobby to level 3 of that building and then through new elevators to other levels.  The tower element accommodates new required emergency egress stairways and an elevator to make the transition to the bridge level.