Glass Works!

Certainly, glass has had its residential place for years, offering the interior a view to the world outside. But these days, only cost and imagination limit glass applications both inside and outside the home.

“We do everything from the very traditional to the extremely contemporary,” says Oliver Birth, vice president and chief financial officer of Beehive Glass. Beehive Glass work can be seen throughout the interior of Salt Lake City’s Little America Grand Hotel and in the glass railing at the city’s new downtown library.

Birth’s father, Peter, bought Beehive Glass in 1968 after immigrating to Salt Lake City from East Germany, where his family had been in the glass business. From Beehive’s beginnings, art glass has been a mainstay of the business, and today seven glass artists work as a team designing, laying out and making color selections for stained and leaded glass transoms, cabinet doors, entry doors, and sidelights. Beveled glass pieces set in leaded glass can flood a room with color as they refract sunlight. Leaded and stained glass windows, however, are fragile by nature. Sandwiching the piece between sheets of tempered or insulated glass keeps it easily maintained, gives it strength and durability, and allows it to meet safety codes, Birth says.

“There are very few things we can’t do here,” says Peter Birth.

If the color, prisms and formality of stained, leaded and beveled glass aren’t quite your taste, the look of carved glass may be eye-catching. Thick glass panes carved with a sandblasting gun or a diamond drill bit can be exquisite works of art, featuring intricate designs, leaves and animals, or a detailed mountain vista. Designs are carved to varied depths, achieving a three-dimensional look. Carved glass cannot be tempered, but tempered or plain glass can be laminated to the uncarved side for a safety glazing.

Lisa and Brad Wilson wanted a real “glass” act, so they turned to Dixon Mirror and Glass Company, which outfitted 10 bathrooms in their Deer Valley home with glass features. Many of the Wilsons’ bathrooms required European-style shower doors — thick and frameless in floor-to-ceiling glass structures — for an unimpeded look at the exquisite stone and granite treatments. “My tile guy was here for about six months, and we didn’t want to hide his work behind regular shower doors,” Lisa says. “And we wanted to personalize them a little.”

John Quist of Architectural Glass Works etched into the doors woodland motifs such as squirrels, hummingbirds, and oak leaves. On one of the doors, he even etched an entire mountain setting. Deer and birch trees predominate, but a closer look reveals the initials of every Wilson child carved into the trees. Not to be excluded, Lisa’s and Brad’s initials are there, too, enclosed in a heart.

Dixon Mirror and Glass is a family venture that Frank and Ivy Quist bought from Walt Dixon in 1960. The business has always focused on glass, but over the decades the company has become more specialized in the products they fabricate. Several years ago, the Quists’ youngest son, John, began developing the artistic portion of the business with the formation of his own Architectural Glass Works. Anything is possible for Quist. His most original design is probably the seven-foot-tall, two-dimensional carved glass rendering of a bear, set in a tree stump that looms at the entry way of another Deer Valley home.

Life-sized glass bears aren’t all that’s new in the glass industry. Euro-doors can be fabricated of bent glass, for instance. For those willing to think outside the shower box, the door can be cut in a specific shape or the entire stall can be constructed of a wide variety of patterned, decorative glass.

Glass has infiltrated the market of nearly every interior dimension. Glass basins are currently popular, some revealing a greenish cast because the glass is so thick. Others are crafted with a near white glass, creating a more crystal appearance, says Oliver Birth. Glass handrails on staircases and guardrails around pools and spas add an airy openness. Designers of ultra-contemporary homes are using glass for backsplashes on kitchen counters. The Wilsons had an antique-mirror backsplash installed in an entertainment bar that during the winter, reflects Deer Valley Resort skiers outside, Lisa says.

If the illusion of space is needed, try mirroring an entire wall. Mirrored walls are frequent components of exercise rooms, Birth says. On the other hand, beveled mirror strips set vertically side-by-side along a curved wall will lend a formal elegance to a room.

Glasswork has evolved to become far more than the occasional vase or shelf. “First glass” treatments include thick glass tabletops with rugged edges centered on hand-worked stumps or cement bases. Beehive Glass has even fabricated an entire desk out of glass, drawer-less, of course, to avoid an otherwise visible mess.

“I think you can do things with glass that create an open spaciousness in enclosed areas,” says Georg Koenig of Polished Edge Glass. The nephew of Peter Birth, who got his start working with glass at Beehive, Koenig has been in business at Polished Edge since 1990. He cautions that not all glass applications are for the financially faint of heart. Switch glass — glass that can fog or clear at the flip of a switch or by sensor — is “extremely expensive.”

Koenig’s company did much of the glass work for the Anderson inHome — a collaborative effort between Anderson Corporation, Utah builder John Wilcox, and AOL Time Warner at Glenwild — including the second-floor glass landing at the top of a “floating” staircase. The fact that you can see right through glass is decidedly one of its benefits, but in the case of the stairs, it was a challenge. In order to prevent stair climbers from giving those below an eyeful of the view up their shorts or skirts, the glass used in the staircase had to be made discreetly opaque.
The downside of the use of glass in residential settings, Koenig says, is that it is soft and easily scratched. It also has a most unforgiving nature. If a piece is mismeasured or miscut and then laminated, it cannot be retrofitted or reworked. The craftsman has to start over.

These are minor issues in the world of glass, however. The applications of glass in residential environments are varied and growing. And the reasons homeowners turn to it to enhance their lifestyles are, well, as clear as glass.

Ann Johnson is a freelance writer who has called Park City home for the past decade.