A designer reimagines classic MCM for the Boise, Idaho, climate.
Once you discover your dream neighborhood, it’s time to look for your dream home. For Jed Splittgerber, a designer, this meant building modern in Boise, bringing a fresh take on familiar mid-century designs but with Idaho’s climate in mind.
“I grew up in Boise, and the first house my wife and I bought was a 1959 Joe La Marche home on the Boise Bench,” Jed says. The tough search for a buildable lot in an existing neighborhood began. “Not having any Eichler- or Rummer-designed homes in Idaho, I became a bit obsessed with the idea of reimagining this style of homes built for our local climate and with more contemporary conveniences,” he explains.
Eichler Exposure
“I went to college in Orange, California, and when I happened to drive through the Fairhaven neighborhood of Eichler homes, I was enthralled,” Jed recalls. The connections to the outdoors, natural light, large spans of glass and building materials on display all caught his eye. “I fell in love with mid-century architecture and design and became well-versed in Eichler homes, the Case Study House Program and furniture from the period, especially Danish Modern designs,” he says. Over a decade of studying floor plans from Eichler and Rummer and thinking about ways to integrate new features went into the process.
Working through sketches and collaboration with an architect and engineer, Jed’s plans were in work well before the lot had even been chosen. “We’d spent years working through ideas of how these styles could be functionally modernized, from increasing the ceiling height from 8 feet to 9 feet to adding a mudroom, laundry room, etc.,” he explains. “This was a common goal of our project: commitment to aesthetics without sacrificing functionality.”

Climate Challenges to Building Modern in Boise
Working with the Boise climate called for some creative solutions to maintain the aesthetic. On either side of the gables, fascia runs on a horizontal plane, but behind it the TPO roof is tapered so it’s higher up on the interior where it connects to the gable. Then, the pitch slopes down to drain everything to the sides of the home, where gutters run front to back. “One of the biggest challenges was explaining the project to potential builders and contractors,” Jed says. He designed a lookbook to show people the vision so they could fully understand the detail and what he was trying to accomplish: a modern post-and-beam home constructed in a traditional way, with more contemporary features and comforts.
“HVAC people had trouble understanding how to run heating without a crawl space because the home is built on a slab and without an attic (the tongue-and-groove roof decking is all structural with foam insulation above) and I didn’t want mini-split units cutting through all of the roof decking in the ceiling in every room,” Jed says. “We were very creative on how we ran the ducting through ceiling drops, especially since the beams are 65-feet long, running from the front of the house through the back.”

Jed’s new build reflects styles found in mid-century plans—all drawn fresh. Pulling from the influence of Eichler and Rummer homes to reimagine a present-day design, this home was most closely influenced by Eichler OJ-1605 and Rummer GB-276 plans. “We had fully engineered, construction-ready plans for the home even before we identified the building lot,” Jed says. “My land search was specifically for this home, so we were looking for a flat lot that was large enough to accommodate the footprint of the home, and the back of the house would be south-facing,” he explains.
Standout Exterior

“We really struggled deciding on the exterior color and kept going back and forth between darker blues and greens before finding a green color that most people call blue,” Jed says. Benjamin Moore’s Narragansett Green hit the mark. “The appearance changes so much throughout the day and that’s one of the reasons we love it,” he explains. The building materials are visible from the tongue-and-groove roof decking and beams throughout the home, but straps and hardware are hidden within the walls as well as the posts for a cleaner, more minimal look. “My design focus is taking away as much as you possibly can until the remaining elements stand out on their own,” Jed says. The glass reflects the interior dining space with the exterior dining area on the other side of the windows and creates a seating area for conversation.

Seamless Connections
Inside, the goal was to create an environment that would improve the family’s lives on a daily basis. Maintaining a sense of spaciousness, Jed worked to create separate but connected spaces and bring the natural light in to connect the home to the outdoors. “The living room wall has the same siding and paint color as the exterior so that wall span into the atrium through the window feels more seamless,” Jed says. The concrete floors, fireplace and tongue-and-groove roof decking are the stars of the material show, so the walls were left as minimal as possible. “When we have guests over we’ll commonly eat in the dining room and then the kids will move to the other side of the wall into the family room to play a game or watch a movie. Then the adults eventually move to the living room and gather around the fireplace—separate spaces yet connected,” he says.
Hosting Memories
“With the build up to our move, we offered to host several events—and they all landed on the same week around the holidays”—a company Christmas party, a gathering for a local Modern Architecture Preservation Group and a family dinner party, Jed says. “Our first New Year’s Eve in the home we had all of the kids’ cousins come over to spend the night, my wife and I sat on the fireplace hearth with the wood burning full force and the kids had all of the slider doors in the house open. We just sat back and enjoyed them playing indoor-outdoor Nerf gun tag in 30-degree weather. It was a blast,” Jed says.

Building Modern in Boise: Atrium Appreciation
Double gables with a break in the center for an atrium create an unexpected view of the home to greet guests at the front door. “Nothing beats the atrium in the spring or fall,” Jed says. The connection it provides to the outdoors and nature throughout the year is amazing. “While walking through, you can look up and see the clouds, birds flying overhead and the perimeter trees blowing in the wind,” Jed says. Enjoying the morning coffee outside in a private space before they’re ready to engage with the outer world is definitely a perk.

Preparation Pays Off
This build was just under a year from groundbreaking to move-in, but bringing the entire concept to completion took closer to a decade. “I purchased the majority of the finishing materials in the year leading up to construction and kept them in a storage unit until I needed to bring them on site for installation,” Jed says. Having the materials on hand ahead of time helped the entire process go smoother and quicker. “We had a vision, and I told the masons while they were building the fireplace that we’d be making memories around this stone column for decades to come, and to finally experience it over the holidays was a bit emotional,” he explains. The completed home is 2,460 square feet, four bedrooms and an office, 2.5 bathrooms, a two-car garage and a carport space.






Glass Houses
Design considerations for getting the most through your MCM windows.
- Passive solar and working with the natural sunlight. Using the orientation and design of the house to take advantage of the passive solar is great,” Jed says. “The sun’s rays pouring in through the wall of windows heat the floors but also create ever-changing shadows and illumination of the spaces.” In this project, the home runs along a straight north-south line so the low winter sun pours into the southern-facing back windows and heats the concrete floors. Large overhangs all around the house counter the higher summer sun and provide shade.
- Raise the roof (or ceilings). One of the biggest modifications to post-and-beam homes that were built in the 1950s and ’60s is to increase the ceiling height from 8 feet to 9 feet. With the one-foot tall beams on the old 8-foot ceilings they actually come down to 7 feet, which feels a little tight. Raising everything up makes everything feel so much more open and the windows are even larger.
- Frosting glass for privacy. Window treatments for walls of windows can be tricky without obstructing the views. Jed added blackout solar roller shades but admits he rarely needs them. Out front, the wall in front of the atrium has frosted panels that create a Gaussian-blur appearance of anything viewed through it.
If you love this Building Modern in Boise story, don’t miss out on other Boise MCM gems such as Past Perfected in a 1965 Boise Home and Renovate or Relocate?: A Boise MCM Home. For more ideas on insulating an MCM home in a harsh climate, read How to Insulate a Mid Century Home. And of course, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube for more Atomic Ranch articles, house tours, and ideas!