When you step through the front door of the Big House, what strikes you are the windows. Standing 14 feet tall and 20 feet wide, they frame the west side of the living room, which looks out into the garden and hayfields beyond. The sun filters in and illuminates soft white stucco walls, saltillo tiles, and wooden countertops. There are vintage black and white photos of brandings, portraits of family members in ten gallon hats, and still life paintings by local artists. In the billiards room, a lofty space just beyond the kitchen, the reverent head of Acapulco, the lead steer of the Frost Livestock Company from 1958 to 1975, is now perched above the fireplace in retirement. As you continue through the house, silhouetted by the light of the prairie, it hits you: this is a living cowboy museum, a sweeping history spanning generations of Colorado’s ranching families. Lucidity is what Wallace Frost, the renowned American architect, was after, when he designed and built the Big House nearly seventy-five years ago.

Will, Frost’s great-grandson, is a third-generation rancher who lives next door to the Big House. To Will, the house is part of the landscape. “I can’t imagine looking out my window and not seeing it,” he said. Will continues to be surprised by how the sunlight catches different corners and angles of the house, weaving it into the horizon line. To him, it will always feel like home, whether he’s celebrating Thanksgiving with family around the kitchen island or admiring the roofline from his own bedroom window. The roof, with its low hanging eaves, is an example of mid-century architecture, designed to mimic the flat movement of the prairie.

Acapulco, the lead steer of the ranch from 1958 to 1975, is now perched above the Big House fireplace in retirement.

Despite this classic profile, it still has its quirks. Since Wallace traveled a great deal throughout his life, the house contains surprising design details he cherry-picked from across the country: terracotta tiles, stone fireplaces, and brass-handled door knocks. The Big House was his last project, and he finished building it a mere six months before he died, in 1958. Will, along with his brother, Sam, and their father, Jay, are the caretakers of the Big House. They are currently in the process of getting the house registered as a national historic home, so that both the family and the public can continue to enjoy it.

Wallace Frost – or “Wally,” as he was known to family – was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1892 and studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania under Paul Cret, who was known for his Beaux-Arts inspired buildings. After graduating in 1917, Frost worked for the military designing hangars in Washington, DC. He later moved to Birmingham, Michigan, where he focused on French provincial and English cottage-style residential homes. In 1926, he established his own firm in Birmingham, but would spend the next 30 years moving around, with stints in California, New Mexico, and Italy. The more he traveled, the more Frost abandoned his European-style tendencies in favor of modernist designs. His time in Montecito, California, in the 1930s proved to be the most meaningful. It was there that Frost began using the natural elements, particularly sunlight, to shape his interior spaces.

Frost drew on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and other mid-century architects to experiment with the power of horizontal lines and open layouts. He became interested in the dynamics of a living room: What are the architectural conditions that foster meaningful thought? How does one provide sanctuary and communion? Drawing his attention inward, Frost became obsessed with natural light’s ability to blend a home and its inhabitants into the surrounding landscape. He increased the size of windows and experimented with unconventional angles to blur this boundary between the inside and outside world. By the time he returned to Michigan, after almost a decade in California, he was designing with a new sensibility, one that he would explore up until his very last project: the Big House.

With seven fireplaces, six bedrooms, five bathrooms, two communal spaces, an office, an attached garage and shop, and a screened-in-porch with original flagstone benches, the Big House is aptly named. Construction began in 1956, the same year Jon, Frost’s son, purchased the 24,000 acre stretch of land about fifty miles southeast of Colorado Springs. Built of cinder blocks, Wallace’s preferred foundation, and adobe, mixed from clay sourced from the nearby creek, it is a blend of modern and Southwestern styles. The house was completed in 1958, and the following year, John married Mary Hanna, the daughter of a neighboring rancher. The couple joined their land and cattle operation together and built an addition onto the house to make room for their growing family. It became a community hub, a meeting place for ranchers to discuss everything from annual rainfall to brand inspections. According to Harah, Frost's granddaughter, it’s “where the culmination of four generations of agrarians have taken a stand for food, agriculture, environmental concern, and family.” It has hosted notable folk musicians like Steve Earle, Hayes Carll, and Corb Lund under its eaves. This rich cultural history lines the walls in countless photographs and paintings, a testament to the impact of Frost’s timeless design.

The house contains surprising design details Frost cherry-picked from across the country, like terracotta tiles, stone fireplaces, and brass-handled door knocks.

A national historic home designation would ease some of the financial burden now associated with the house, ensuring its proper maintenance and preservation. The Frost family originally applied within the state of Colorado, but their application was bumped up to the national level, where it was deemed representative of a master’s craft. The long-term goal, Will said, is for the family to continue to spend time there, but also allow the public to visit or stay by appointment. He has dreams of starting an artist or writer’s retreat, since, as he says, the space is “conducive for thoughtful feeling.”

The integration of different raw materials and various architectural styles make for a ranch house that is unlike many others in the American West, and yet, the Big House still maintains the integrity and character of its surroundings. It’s easy to imagine the early days of the 1960s, when the neighbors stood in the kitchen at dawn, hunched over their coffee mugs, discussing the day’s chores ahead. Or the later years, when small children reached up to the wooden countertops for a steaming cup of hot chocolate on Christmas morning. The magic of this house is how it holds generations of memories underneath its eaves. And how, despite the passing of time, each one of these scenes feels as though it could happen today. Wallace must have known this when he built it, that the Big House would endure as a place for people to gather, basking in the golden light of Pikes Peak.