This winter in Aspen, Australia’s luxury outdoor furniture brand Harbour, owned and operated by brothers Harrison and Nicholas Condos, unveiled a spirited collaboration with the legendary St. Regis Aspen Resort and The Snow Lodge (sister property to the trailblazing Surf Lodge in Montauk). Within the St. Regis’s majestic courtyard, overlooking a dramatic stage of lyrical mountain ridges, the bespoke Après Ski experience, “Harbour House,” unfolds, and Whitewall was invited for an inside look.
The Snow Lodge team, spearheaded by founder Jayma Cardoso, has established this season another vivacious entertainment concept in sparkling Aspen—fusing supper club, lounge, and open-air hideaway with rapturous programming of food, music, fashion, art, and wellness. Designed by Antonio Di Oronzo of Bluarch, the effervescent Jade Room has already become a byword for joyful decadence, uniting a curated mise-en-scene of vintage furniture, Dom Perignon champagne and Petrossian caviar service, and dreamlike works by artists including David Yarrow, Alex Katz, Anthony James, and Richard Serra. Intimate cabarets and DJ sets never cease to amaze (we caught a magnetic show by Saint Harison), while the magic extends outdoors in a partnership with REVOLVE, offering energetic performances by musical artists from Blond:ish to Bob Moses.
Harrison and Nicholas Condos; courtesy of Harbour, The Snow Lodge, and The St. Regis Aspen Resort.
Harbour House is a Bespoke Après Ski Experience
To complete the wintry fairy tale at the St. Regis, Cardoso invited Harbour’s celebrated co-founders to further enhance the dynamic setting. Known globally for their innovative savoir-faire, Harbour skillfully collages time-honored craftsmanship with sleek design, elegant fabrics, and robust durability in tune with mother nature’s whims. The Condos family has been immersed in the artistry of hand-made furniture since 1976, with Harrison and Nicholas breathing prismatic new life into their father’s company Tecno Furniture.
In a deft welding of supreme materials including sustainably-sourced Indonesian teak, powder-coated aluminum, and high-performance upholstery, Harbour imbues the revitalizing beauty of Australian coastal living into each and every new collection. With headquarters in Los Angeles, and showrooms from New York to Hong Kong—with the latest edition in the Miami Design District—the brand is an international pioneer in transcendent outdoor furniture. During our visit, day to night Harbour House festivities ensued, with DJ performances from Cassian and Night Tales sending visitors from around the world soaring in the idyllic snow-capped setting.
Courtesy of REVOLVE, Harbour, The Snow Lodge, and The St. Regis Aspen Resort.
While in Aspen, Whitewall had the opportunity to speak with Condos about his meticulous eye for design, a life-long immersion in crafting sumptuous furniture that withstands the test of time, and sustaining a family-owned and operated brand that uplifts harmony with the environment and humanity.
Courtesy of Harbour, The Snow Lodge, and The St. Regis Aspen Resort.
The Design Behind Harbour House
WHITEWALL: What were some of your earliest design inspirations that led to the evolution of your father’s company into Harbour?
NICHOLAS CONDOS: The early design inspirations mainly came from European influences—always ahead with style and design, with a modern look. When we launched the company, we were looking to Europe for inspiration. Australia is quite ahead of design with a modern look as well. The US was doing more traditional metal, garden furniture, so we looked at our company to be something that sat in-between, that was modern but that wasn’t a European company—an Australian modern company.
WW: What sparked your inspired partnership with The Snow Lodge?
NC: I know Jayma through different friends. She owns Surf Lodge and then she did this Snow Lodge theme. We were going to work with her on surfboards at one point a couple of years ago, but it never happened. Then she called me and said we need furniture. She’s friends with a lot of my friends, and we’re in the same circles in New York because I used to live there.
Courtesy of REVOLVE, Harbour, The Snow Lodge, and The St. Regis Aspen Resort.
WW: How were you influenced by the dynamic site of The Snow Lodge and The St. Regis Aspen—a collaging of contemporary luxury and bountiful mountain landscape?
NC: We didn’t design this custom for the project but next year that might happen if we continue the partnership. This year it was about what we had and what they picked for the courtyard. What they picked fits with the hotel: dark colors, nothing too bright—which I think works with the property. It’s an upscale brand. I think it blends, which is good, with some of the natural teak elements in the sofas and the tables. It’s nice having that organic material around which blends in with the mountains. It all works so it’s not too loud. It looks great and with more time next year it might evolve into something even more curated.
WW: Can you share a bit about your artistic process, championing timeless craftsmanship while infusing modern design aesthetics?
NC: A lot of it starts with travel and looking at different materials—whether it’s in window frames or the stone on walls and floors. A lot of inspiration comes from me being quite detailed, looking at everything wherever I’m going or moving around—holidays in Europe or Australia, even being here, different surfaces, different materials, seeing other people’s products, and going to trade shows in Milan and Paris.
From there, we’re very visual in the way we process everything. Everything from everyone on the team gets printed—otherwise it gets lost in the computer, or on the phone, or photos. Then we have different mood boards, and it all goes on the boards. It’s an evolving process of blending inspiration from one thing we like, or one material, or one shape we like, and it forms into a collection. It’s very visual in the office.
Courtesy of Harbour, The Snow Lodge, and The St. Regis Aspen Resort.
WW: How do you balance the creation of furniture that is both durable to a myriad of climates as well as visually stunning?
NC: That’s the toughest part of making furniture. A lot of designers that come out of school can make a drawing or a render that looks pretty, but they don’t know how it goes together, how the joints work, and how the different materials work. A lot of that is experience and I’ve had a lot of experience. I used to make furniture in my father’s factory in Australia. My first learning of furniture wasn’t studying in school, it was physically making the product. I have hands-on experience from the age of 13,14, and then I studied graphic design and product design after that. Everything is very hands-on for me—it was at the start, and it still is now.
Proportion and scale are a big part of it—and getting it right. The construction comes from the knowledge of it all, of me being in the factories in Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and seeing all the machinery. We don’t just design it and give it to the factory—we own the factories. We choose the machinery, whether we buy an Italian machine, or a Chinese machine, or whatever specific process is needed to execute the product, so it goes together, lasts, and withstands time.
We have a lot of manufacturing experience, not just design, because we are vertical, start to finish—concept, design, manufacture. It makes the design process quicker because we don’t design things that won’t work, we already know what won’t work construction-wise. Others design things, take it to the factory, and the factory says, that isn’t going to work, redesign it and come back. It speeds up the process. We are there throughout and have a lot of knowledge.
Designing for the Elements in Aspen
WW: Were there any challenges that transpired while creating the open-air Harbour House experience?
NC: Everything was out of the catalog, so nothing was custom. When we do a custom product, it becomes more challenging. We didn’t have to do any of that which saves a lot of back and forth. It was quite seamless.
WW: How will the pieces on display be in vibrant conversation with your storied brand ethos, international guests, and both the majesty and fragility of Mother Nature?
NC: In the courtyard, the building itself is the main event and the furniture adds to the ambiance. Everything is quite symmetrical and is facing out towards the mountains. The product is sitting on the snow, so it has to be built to last. Our brand is about living the outdoor lifestyle. This is the perfect synergy for our brand, which is about living outside and enjoying being with friends and family. Our ethos and campaign for this year—and always—is “Making Memories.” Whether it’s at a dining table or at a fireplace having a drink, it’s about bringing people together.
Courtesy of REVOLVE, Harbour, The Snow Lodge, and The St. Regis Aspen Resort.
