When late actor Robert Redford began acquiring the land in Utah’s Wasatch Range that would become Sundance Mountain Resort, he did so with the preservation of its beauty in mind. What started off as a $500 purchase of two acres in the mountain region in 1961 quickly expanded to thousands of acres, forming a resort the Academy Award winner would name Sundance, after the outlaw he played in his breakout film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. From the outset, Redford's guiding principle was simple: “Develop a little, preserve a lot.”
By 1969, the visionary had taken over a small, family-run ski resort in the Provo Canyon, gradually adding an assortment of cottages and mountain homes scattered about the property. Keenly aware of the dangers of overdevelopment, Redford remained faithful to his ethos, employing materials, design, and scale that would allow the landscape’s beauty to shine. In 2020, Redford handed the property to new ownership who engaged seasoned hospitality designers Bull Stockwell Allen to develop a plan for the resort and establish updated architectural and siting guidelines for future construction. So although Redford died in 2025, his principles continue to guide the look and feel of the resort’s exteriors and interiors today.
After five years in which the only changes were thoughtful upgrades to existing buildings, a new 63-room hotel dubbed The Inn at Sundance Mountain Resort opened this winter as a natural extension of Redford’s vision. The environmental steward’s values are reflected in decisions such as rooflines set 10 to 15 feet below existing tree lines; the siting of the winged hotel on either side of a creek so as not to disturb the waterway; and the placement of a connecting bridge that allows easy passage between the two buildings while providing unobstructed views of the Timpanogos mountains. The creek itself becomes part of the experience and guests can hear its gurgles from their room.
Inside, the design turns to storytelling. “This was the first true new-build project at Sundance in a long time, so it required a particularly careful process,” says Tom Parker, cofounder of Fettle, the design studio behind the interiors at The Inn and in recently upgraded cabins at the resort. The interiors at The Inn are intentionally modest in scale, closer in spirit to a private residence than a conventional hotel. Rather than creating a pastiche of Redford’s designs or an overly literal take on mountain style, Fettle approached the spaces as an accumulation of Sundance’s layered history—one that predates Redford and extends beyond him.
“The aim was to tell the entire story of the land, from when it was first inhabited by the Indigenous Ute people, through the families who owned it before Redford, and into the period when Sundance was built, cabin by cabin, in the 1970s and ’80s,” Parker says. “There shouldn’t be a wall of Robert Redford photos. That exists elsewhere on the property.”
The different eras of the property’s history are expressed harmoniously through material, craft, and color, without one element overpowering another. In the reception area and adjoining “living room,” naturally sourced stone, reclaimed timber floors, hand-distressed tongue-and-groove walls, and exposed beams establish a sense of continuity with Sundance’s earliest structures.
Custom furnishings in local wood and leather sit alongside carefully sourced vintage pieces from the 1970s and ’80s, and some of the custom pieces have been reupholstered in muted tones to create a patina that blends in with the antiques. Subtle gestures, including tartan drapery and cushions, nod to the Celtic heritage of the Stewart family who first built the ski resort, while Western-inspired patterns and stitched-leather details reference the rustic yet refined Sundance sensibility attributed to Redford.
One of Parker’s favorite vignettes is in the living room around the stone fireplace where stained-glass windows and newly commissioned artworks (curated by Seewney Co. Art Advisors) reference Indigenous forms. “There’s a really interesting moment there,” Parker explains. “The way the light catches windows and then sprays the colored light onto all of the fireplace and onto the other pieces—that was never planned, and it turned out to be beautiful.”
In the end, it was the constraints—historical, geographic, and man-made—that Parker believes provided the freedom to design this new piece of Sundance. “I think it’s probably what made the project as successful as it’s been,” he says. “All of that came together really nicely.”
