Tour a Modern Mountain House Decked Out for the Holidays

For years Lizzy Pendleton’s husband, Clay, tried to persuade her to move from Houston, Texas, to the mountains of Colorado. “I kept telling him no way, I don’t like cold weather — and I couldn’t ski!” Lizzy says. But then Clay, a urologist, got a great job offer in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Lizzy agreed to try it for a year, and a decade later, the family is still there. “I fell in love with the community,” she says. The couple’s kids walk to school, even in the snow (Lizzy does too; she’s a social worker there.), and they sled with neighbors right out their back door. A recent renovation transformed the 1970s house into a modern, cozy family hangout. With the help of local firm Rumor Designs, they chose neutral colors and natural materials, which turned out to be the perfect backdrop for the Pendletons’ colorful Christmas decorations. “The holidays here are so fun,” says Lizzy, who finally learned to love winter sports. “We even ski on Christmas Day!”