July 26, 2021

Our Top 100 Projects countdown continues today by highlighting a complicated residential project in a Colorado village that caters to winter sports and summertime hiking and festivals. For Landmark Condominiums, Epstein was the architect of record for a 67,907-square-foot renovation and 28,041-square-foot addition to the existing development in Vail.

The work was comprised of a complete re-cladding of the existing 8-story high-rise tower, a 4-story addition over an existing 3-story grouping of townhomes also completely re-clad, as well as a new elevator tower and lobby building constructed to tie together the entire development. Careful attention was paid to the aesthetic improvements to the development, the thermal and energy efficient improvements of the new exterior wall system, and the sound transmission control properties of the exterior glazing system.

Re-cladding of the exterior of the condominium tower was conducted in stages while the building remained occupied. Painstaking efforts were taken to reduce or eliminate noise and vibration, debris removal, and interruption of the users’ routine. The exterior facades received all new cladding, including the windows, balcony railing, and roofing and structural overbuilds. The exterior wall systems were constructed using heavy gage steel stud framing with a combination of natural stone, fiber cement siding and trim.

One of the most interesting aspects of this project is the new structural system developed for the additional three stories added above the existing wood framed townhomes. Instead of bearing on the existing structure, a “mega truss” was designed to bridge over the existing roof onto new columns at the north and south of the building. In essence, the existing building is being encapsulated by the addition and the new exterior skin.

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Ed Curley, our Director of Architecture, provided the following anecdotes from his time working on the project:

I believe this project is in my personal top-five of all-time favorites. I loved every bit of this project, from the client to the contractor to our team; everyone was phenomenal. To my knowledge, this is Epstein’s only project built on a mountain. The Landmark Condominiums was quite a difficult project in that there were a number of code interpretations we had to work through, and several code limitations that caused us to have to think outside of the box. Both the Vail Fire and Building departments were extremely helpful partners throughout this process. They helped us interpret a fairly standard building code to this unique project.

Working on this project allowed me to experience Vail in all four seasons due to the bi-weekly OAC meetings. This was also the one and only time I have ever skied (the bunny hill on Vail mountain rules).