Authentically Old World – By Heather Shoning

The scenic homesites of Ravenna offer the glory of the Colorado landscape and the Old World charm of a luxurious Spanish cortijo home.

When home-building duo Bill and Jill Maul set their sights on the colorful landscape of Ravenna, it was not with rustic Colorado style in mind, but instead Old World Europe. The couple set out to build a trio of homes: one Italianate, one Spanish cortijo and one French country home. With the Italianate home completed first, the couple began the process of designing and building a sprawling home with traditional Spanish architectural details and unmatched grand elegance.

To capture true Spanish style, the couple traveled extensively throughout Europe taking in the culture and architecture. “Bill loves doing this,” Jill says. “He studied the details so extensively; he really wanted this home to be ‘the real thing’.” Bill discovered that many homes in the region are a puzzle of stones and stucco. In dreaming up his own home, he imagined how an “old stone barn” would sit on a hillside for hundreds of years, then a home would be added in another century, of another material. He recreated the look on his own hillside lot.

“We started thinking of the hacienda or cortijo style—a very courtyard-heavy style,” Bill says. “There is a large courtyard in the front, and when you open the front door you look straight through to the back patio courtyard.” The public sections of the home are on one side of the courtyard, and the private sections are kept that way by being situated on the opposite side.

The home’s exterior was carefully hand-finished with a plaster technique designed to look like aged stucco. The multi-colored clay tile roof mimics the ancient homes of the Spanish hillsides. The interior exudes a romantic, casual elegance with textured drywall finish, natural stones, custom clay tiles from Mexico and reclaimed oak flooring in a warm, rich brown. The bright white spaces are warmed with the rich hues of heavy wooden beams in half-round designs, traditional in Spanish architecture.

Another true-to-style feature is the lack of wood trim and casings throughout the home. “Spanish style doesn’t have wood baseboards,” Bill says. A typical Spanish home doesn’t feature wood throughout with the exception of exposed wooden supports.

One area that departs from this rule is the study. “We wanted this area of the home to be a little more polished and formal,” Bill says. The paneled walls give way to courtyards on both ends of the room creating a relaxing space to enjoy a fire and a colorful Colorado sunset.

The hilly Ravenna setting surrounding the Spanish-style home offers a blend of elegant style and rustic landscape that creates a special place like no other in the world. “The area is fabulous—nature, the gorgeous rocks. It doesn’t get any better than this,” Jill says. “We can go away anywhere in the world and still can’t wait to get home.”