Celebrity Homes: Enter The Desertscape Retreat of Brandon Flowers

The Killers frontman, Brandon Flowers, boasts a beautiful home that is a desertscape retreat in the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah.

Brandon Flowers has been narrating American tales to the soundtrack of rock and roll as the frontman of The Killers since 2002. Over the decades, the Las Vegas band has often glamorized the pursuit of a dream that is bigger than the quintessential small hometown. They have set the scene for a lifetime of anthems rooted in the crossfire of faith and freedom.

So for those familiar with his catalogue, which includes seven full-length albums and two solo records, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Flowers’ home in Park City, Utah, is an extension of this idealistic vision. This beautiful home boasts an all-black exterior and Western-themed interiors. It’s not so much an escape as a refuge that is the appropriate amount of over-the-top.

The home was designed by architect Cristof Eigelberger, whom Flowers first hired in 2015 to work on his Las Vegas residence. After settling on this particular house, which is about an hour from the musician’s childhood home in Nephi, Utah, Eigelberger spent approximately a year and a half changing the exterior façade and fully gutting the drywall interior.

Today, the five-bedroom home includes a media room, ski room, and a four-car garage—among (many) other attributes.

Ski right in

“What’s amazing about the house itself is that it is a direct ski-in, so you’re able to go out onto the terrace, watch people ski by, and play in the yard for sledding or hiking in the summer,” Eigelberger says. “In the winter time you can literally ski in and come right down.”

Eigelberger’s firm specializes in zeroing in on a bigger picture. To determine the legacy of any home, and how its architecture will live on after its owner has moved out, his team surveys the vernacular of the area in which the residence is being built. Since Flowers is hypersensitive to colour, the sample process had to be very precise in order to make sure that everything vibed. “He wanted something that was very moody and worked with his artwork,” Eigelberger says.

The goal was to figure out how to tone everything down without turning the space into a bright box. Because the Flowers family appreciates the “vibrant craziness of all the textures,” Eigelberger was able to really push the envelope in terms of the selections for the wallpapers which feature minimal designs.

Opening up the space

Opting for natural barn wood materials evoked a more neutral palate, which in turn provided rhythmic symmetry and opened up the space. The concept was to start with three items that would tie the entire house together and then layer on top of those textures and fabrics. (Think reclaimed wood, flooring elements, and more wallpaper.)

All of the cabinetry in the kitchen was refaced with a white oak, while the countertops were redone with Ann Sacks tiles. “[Brandon] wanted to get the sensitivity and stability of the desert, but still be within the mountains,” Eigelberger says. “And then he had this concept of having a little bit of a Liberace vibe to it as we went up the stairs.”

The second level of the house features a grand piano on an extravagant vintage carpet that Brandon finessed from the casino of Caesars Palace. It also boasts a gold-leafed ceiling that cuts into a mirror.

“That was really fun because it’s sort of that unexpected moment throughout the architecture that we were able to capture,” Eigelberger says. He recalls how it was fairly challenging to figure out how to make such a loud pattern work in a small space amidst the other combination of materials, but there’s a harmonious vibrancy that comes through for a tastefully regal ambiance. Beyond the promise of a good time, it’s a palatable energy that suggests good fortune and luxury.

“Brandon understands and appreciates spaces of different scales,” Eigelberger says. “The compression of space is so important to architecture and to get a client to understand that is a big hurdle. Having those small spaces really becomes sometimes the most wonderful part of the entire home.”