HOSPITALITY
CAFÉ V
Nestled inside the Viceroy Snowmass, Café V is a 400-square-foot café imagined as both an elevated guest experience and a discreet workspace for the resort’s real estate team. The client envisioned a moody, elegant jewel box—one that felt sculptural, smart, and quietly luxurious. With the rugged beauty of the surrounding mountains as inspiration, the design evokes intimacy, movement, and precision within a compact footprint.
At the heart of the design is a custom bench, engineered from aerospace-grade honeycomb aluminum for strength and weightlessness. Wrapped in walnut, it evokes the path of a river—sweeping through the café as seating, desk, and gesture. Its fluid form sweeps from wall to floor to workstation without visible support—echoing the path of a mountain stream and demonstrating structural precision rarely seen in hospitality interiors. This sculptural gesture anchors the room with quiet drama, balancing organic inspiration with engineered finesse. Conceptual renderings reveal the layered complexity of the construction beneath its seamless exterior.
Framing the space is a grid of custom blackened steel shelving. Designed as a sculptural backbone to the café’s function, it balances proportion and negative space, offering both display and visual rhythm behind the espresso bar. Each box and intersection was designed to feel architectural, not ornamental.
Opposite, a cantilevered pastry case hovers like a jewelry display. Commercial grade, ultra matte, soft touch veneer, recessed lighting, and ultra-clear glass elevate the everyday into the refined—allowing pastries to appear as curated as gemstones beneath a halo of soft illumination. Its internal structure, fully concealed, creates a sense of levitation within a tightly orchestrated footprint.
Lighting was designed to echo alpine stillness—brushed chrome pendants drip from the ceiling like frozen drops, while recessed wall lights create a dappled, glacial texture across raw concrete blocks. Together, the elements create a quiet choreography of light and shadow.
Together, these elements—wood, steel, and concrete —become a trio of intention.
In a space the size of a small studio, Café V offers stillness, structure, and mountain-inspired intimacy.
Within its tight footprint, the cafe offers a space to pause, refuel, and reflect—where the energy of the mountain meets the elegance of the interior.
