A Park City Home Inspired by a James Bond Movie Asks $33.5 Million

At Utah’s Deer Valley Resort, the property has a sleek, modern design based on a glass house in the 2015 spy film ‘Spectre’

A James Bond-inspired home under construction at Utah’s Deer Valley Resort is asking $33.5 million.

The mountaintop home in Park City will measure about 15,000 square feet, said the developer, Matt Alcone of Alcone Ventures. With floor-to-ceiling glass walls and a flat roof, the house will have a sleek, modern design inspired by a glass house seen in the 2015 James Bond film “Spectre,” Mr. Alcone said.

The house is the most expensive home ever listed for sale at Deer Valley, according to listing agent Steve Jury of Keller Williams Park City. It is also among most expensive homes on the market in Utah, Mr. Jury said.

At about 9,000 feet above sea level, the roughly 2-acre property overlooks Park City and the Wasatch Mountains. The home has access to Deer Valley ski trails as well as backcountry skiing, Mr. Alcone said, and sits in the middle of hiking and biking trails. The nearby Provo River is ideal for fly fishing, according to Mr. Jury.

Mr. Alcone said he bought the land in two separate transactions in 2020, but declined to say how much he paid. He broke ground on the project last November and expects it to be finished by late 2023 or early 2024, he said.

The house will have four bedrooms, all with private bathrooms and patios, as well as a media room and roughly 16 fireplaces, Mr. Alcone said. Intended as a multigenerational family retreat, the house will have an 11-person bunk room with two private bathrooms, two walk-in closets and a patio.

Amenities will include a rooftop deck and a 44-foot-long heated outdoor lap pool. An office complex in the house will have a videoconference room, an executive office and a bathroom. Plans also call for a fitness centre with a sauna, a steam room and a massage room that opens to the pool deck. The property will have a motor court and multiple garages, including one for ATVs and one for snowmobiles. But the home is still in the early stages of construction, he said, so the design can be modified at the buyer’s request.

The house will be constructed from hand-cut Montana Moss stone, he said, paired with reclaimed timber along the ceilings and walls to give it a warm feel.

Mr. Alcone, who lives primarily in California, said real-estate development is a passion of his. He has built and sold homes in Hawaii and California, he said, and this is his first project in Utah.

The idea of wallpaper elicits so much apprehension in homeowners, New York designer Francis Toumbakaris purposely uses the term “wallcovering” when speaking to clients about it. Yet decorating websites and media accounts teem with instances of the stuff. “It transforms a room and gives it personality,” said Casey Keasler, founder of design studio Casework, in Portland, Ore.

So what keeps folks from hanging the gorgeous material, and how do homeowners get over these wallpaper willies? Here, some case studies of conversions.

Hangup: It’s too pricey.

Budget concerns can hamstring homeowners. Home-services company Angi estimates that wallpaper can cost as much as $12 a square foot for labor and materials, while painting tops out at $6. “If the wall surface needs work beforehand, prices go up,” said Bethany Adams, an interior designer in Louisville, Ky. And Keasler notes that paper can cost as much as $400 a roll.

Antidote: Baby steps

New York designer Tara McCauley says homeowners can get more hang for their buck by using paper strategically. In an apartment in Brooklyn whose homeowners sweated the bottom line, she coated only the hallway with a dark-blue pattern inspired by Portuguese tiles. “It added so much impact,” McCauley said of the modest use. The designer adds that another way to save money is by hanging what she calls the gateway drug to wallpaper: patternless grass cloth. With no need to align a motif, the material goes up quickly and costs less to install, she says, “but it adds visual depth in a way plain paint never could.”

Hangup: I’ll get sick of it

A fear of commitment stops many would-be wall paperers, who worry about having a change of heart later. Erik Perez, a design publicist with his own firm in Los Angeles, campaigned hard for what he thought was the perfect old-Hollywood look for his and his husband’s dining room—a maximalist, leafy green wallpaper made famous by the mid-20th-century decoration of the Beverly Hills Hotel. His husband, Paul Hardoin, a voice-over actor, resisted. “Is it going to go out of style? Will I tire of it? Will it affect resale value?” he worried.

Erik Perez, right, and his husband, Paul Hardoin, in their Los Angeles dining room, clad in CW Stockwell’s Martinique paper. Photo: Julie Goldstone for WSJ

Antidote: Low-use spaces

Infrequently used rooms can carry a bold choice long-term. Of the Brooklyn hallway she wrapped in blue, McCauley noted, “It’s a pass-through, so you don’t get overwhelmed by a bold pattern.” Ditto powder and dining rooms, like that of Perez, who said, “We only used that room when we were entertaining and it was too cold to be outside.”

It took three years, but Hardoin caved when the banana-leaf pattern became available in blue. “I thought it looked cool,” Hardoin said. He took the leap, knowing his sister Annette Moran (a wallpaper enthusiast) would be their DIY installer. “Now it’s the happiest room in the house,” he said.

Hangup: It’s dated

When Sarah and Nate Simon bought a historic home in Louisville, Ky., the walls sported oppressively dark patterns, including big, repeating medallions set in a grid. Sarah recalls thinking, “ ‘Not this! What’s the opposite of this?’ In my mind that would be paint.” Even for folks who haven’t pulled down awful examples, “the word ‘wallpaper’ can take them back to flowery patterns of the ’50s and ’60s that feel very dated,” said Toumbakaris.

Antidote: Modernity

“Wallpaper does not mean what it used to. It can be meandering, abstract, ombre or sisal,” said Simon’s interior designer, Bethany Adams. She suggested a sophisticated Chinoiserie that New York designer Miles Redd, in a collaboration with Schumacher, updated with an aqua colorway. Adams explains that like most Chinoiseries, this pattern doesn’t repeat for more than 8 feet. “You get a peripatetic design that keeps the eye engaged,” she said. “It’s looser.” Said Simon of her dining room today, “It’s a complete transformation, like art on my walls.”

Stereotypes of fusty florals and pitiless patterns fall away when designers present homeowners with contemporary picks. Still, sometimes the conversion takes time. One of Keasler’s clients, gun-shy after removing old paper, came back a year later, ready. “We chose a clean classic style that was graphic and minimal for a modern edge in the bathroom,” said the designer.