(Editor's Note: This story first appeared in the Mountain Home Design 2007 issue of Mammoth Monthly magazine. Download the entire magazine here)

If Robin Stater has a mantra in designing interiors, it's as simple as it is time-honored.

"It sounds kind of simple, but form follows function," she said recently in a conversation in her office at the Sierra Design Studio.

"I always like to look at what the function or use is of a home and go from there. If it's meant to be entertaining, or for family gatherings, or for people just to get away, start from that point, then do the design as to what the clients' needs are."

---

Mammoth Home And Design Special
Moving Toward Contemporary
Elliott Brainard's Tree House
The Niles Family 'Cabin'
Stretching The Meaning Of 'Green'
Larry Walker And Artistic Design
Corrine Brown And The New Technology
Robin Stater's Rugged Designs

---

In Mammoth, that means the choice of flooring, upholstery fabrics, furniture surfaces -- almost everything, in other words -- has to be as tough as the world we live in.

"Typically up here you have a lot of activity," she said. "We have all these mountain homes and they have to be very durable. You have skiing; you have people dragging snow in from the outdoors; in the summer you have bike riding and hiking. So you need to have a more rugged interior than you might have in another type of an area.

"They want to put their feet up on he tables and not worry about scratching them. They want to walk around in the dust, ride their motorcycles and mountain bikes, then come indoors and not have to worry about anything.

"They already have their traditional type home in Southern California, or they have contemporary homes.

"When they come up here, they want something totally different. That's what Mammoth represents: a completely different experience."

Stater, an allied member of the American Society of Interior Designers, began her studio in 1988 and opened her Old Mammoth Road showroom in six years ago. Thirteen years ago she began her career as an interior designer, working first in what Mammoth had available. Over time, she has assembled a team of craftspeople that include Julie Johnson-Holland, principle designer and remodel design manager; Baker, for painting and special finishes; Sean and Chris Johnston for special finishes, cabinets and walls, along with kitchen designers Jessica Mascarenas and Noel Knower. Designer, Showroom Manager.

"Back then, we had affordable condos and the most expensive homes were four hundred and five hundred thousand dollars. You didn't have the same level and amount of high-end homes."

Even so, Stater brought a bold design sense into her projects. In one condo project, this one in 1998, she took a condo that had cold, white semi-glossed walls, with a warmth-sucking black cinder floor-to-ceiling fireplace, and turned it completely around.

Working with her longtime associate, painter Baker, she splashed bright red paint on one whole wall, painted the others in two shades of rosy beige and, in the bedroom, selected just one wall and gave it a sage treatment. The black fireplace was neutralized into a darker version of the walls -- but not too much darker -- and she finished off the room with a thick, neutral drape.

"I remember that condo," she said. "That was right after [the late] Tom Dempsey told me that my colors weren't intense enough."

Stater smiled at the memory, and of those days that are long since past.

"We've graduated up to higher levels, where we went from working on one hundred thousand dollar condos to five, six and seven-million dollar homes."

She said she is glad that her journey took that path.

"I'm glad we started where we did and gradually worked our way forward because we've learned a lot. I've always done things a little bit differently than some of the designers here. We make a lot of things and we've worked with a lot of local artists. It's not just a matter of picking things out of a catalog and placing it. We started doing that early on so that we could make a more artistic interior.

"Most of the contractors we work with have over twenty years working in Mammoth, and it's kind of a big deal to me that they've been in Mammoth a long time. I've seen it happen where clients have sent contractors up from Down South but we'll finish the job because the logistics up here are really tough."

Logistics are tough, the landscape is tough and, in Stater's designs, many of the interiors are rugged enough to take whatever anybody wants to throw at them, whether it's a gaggle of skiers, a troupe of mountain bikers or a herd of dirt bikers.

The form follows the function.

View image View image View image View image