A Home With a Hint of Monastery (The Wall Street Journal)

A Home With a Hint of Monastery

A Colorado couple with a passion for Japan and climbing builds a quiet home

Norie Kizaki and David Wolf knew just what they wanted for the house they were building in Colorado: a home that reflected Ms. Kizaki’s childhood in a Buddhist monastery in rural Japan, where her father was a monk.

But they also wanted a light touch: a relatively modest size and an exterior that wouldn’t stand out too much in their Boulder neighborhood, with its mix of 1950s-era ranch houses and colonial bungalows. “We wanted to incorporate the stuff we liked about Japanese houses, but we didn’t want people to say, ‘turn left at the Japanese house,’ ” says Mr. Wolf.