Project 13 of 17
Shire Ridge Lodge
Lodges & Stays · Bragg Creek, Alberta
Twelve drone takes, four flown inside. Forty-one photographs, door by door.
Shire Ridge Lodge is the bed and breakfast at Shire Ridge Ranch & Lodge, a working ranch in the foothills just outside Bragg Creek.
It keeps three rooms, and every one has its name on the door: the Stampede Room, the Windsor Room and the Elk Suite. Atom2Adam Studio flew twelve takes, four of them inside the lodge, and Nathan photographed the three rooms, a balcony and the breakfast room in twenty-four minutes — without one guest in any frame. The page opens each door, sits down to breakfast, then walks out to the horses and the Rockies. Three doors, one breakfast, the ranch, the mountains.
- Subject
- Shire Ridge Lodge, the bed and breakfast at Shire Ridge Ranch & Lodge, 240020 Range Road 42, Calgary — tucked in the foothills just outside Bragg Creek, Alberta. Three rooms, homestyle breakfast included, and a working ranch outside the door.
- Intent
- Let a traveller choose their room before they book it: open each door, sit down to breakfast, then walk out to the horses and the mountains.
- Seen
- A black hat on horseshoe hooks, Royal keepsakes on a dark dresser, black-and-white tile, a stone fireplace, an antler chandelier with its candle bulbs lit, horses in a paddock, and the Rockies on the horizon.
- Made
- Twelve drone takes, four of them flown inside the lodge, and forty-one photographs of three rooms, a balcony and the breakfast room, made in twenty-four minutes by the camera's own clock. Not one guest is in any frame.
I
The door
Up to the name over the front doors.
Shire Ridge Lodge calls itself a ranch-style bed and breakfast in Bragg Creek where quiet mornings, wide-open skies and warm Alberta hospitality come standard. The camera starts outside, at a pair of wooden doors under the black sign with the lodge's name on it, each door hung with an autumn wreath of pumpkins, pinecones and corn husks. The film at the top of this page has already gone in ahead of it: it circles the antler chandelier in the breakfast room.
Lanterns and pumpkins by the front doors.
II
The Stampede Room
A king bed under three Calgary Stampede posters.
The lodge says the Stampede Room tips its hat to the Calgary Stampede. It does better than tip one: it hangs one on the wall — a black hat on a horseshoe hook beside a coiled lariat — and puts three Calgary Stampede posters over the king bed. It is a king room with western charm, perfect, in the lodge's words, for work or a weekend escape, with a walk-out patio for morning coffee, a well-stocked beverage bar and a cozy workspace.
A black hat and a lariat on horseshoe hooks.
One black hat on one horseshoe hook. Get the smallest thing in a room right, and the whole room follows.
The Stampede Room, by its own sign.
The bed, the lariat, the desk nook.
Three Stampede posters: a chuckwagon, two riders, number 108.
A walk-in shower and rich wood accents.
The door, the hat rack, the poster, the magazines.
Glass, a black faucet, a basket of toiletries.
From the corner: bed, poster, the bathroom door.
The desk nook: coffee, snacks and a metal star.
Between rooms, Nathan stepped out onto the balcony that runs along the lodge: a pale deck, boxwood in planters, a covered corner with lounge chairs, and the fields beyond the glass.
The balcony along the lodge, facing the fields.
A lounger and two chairs under cover.
III
The Windsor Room
A queen bed striped red, cream and brown.
The Windsor Room is, in the lodge's words, a cozy queen room with English charm and touches of family history, inspired by family roots and a fondness for the old country. From the Royal Family keepsakes to the handmade touches, the lodge says, everything in here tells a story — and the keepsakes are right there on the dresser: teacups, figurines, a royal commemorative jug and a brass oil lamp, with plates hung on the wall above.
The Windsor Room, by its own sign.
Teacups, figurines and plates: the keepsakes.
The listing promises black-and-white tile. The bathroom floor keeps the promise.
Subway tile above, black-and-white below.
Coffee, treats and the lodge's welcome sign.
The sleigh bed, the prints, the curtained windows.
White basin, black faucet, black tile.
The room from the corner, plates on the wall.
IV
The Elk Suite
Country plaids, deer patches, antler pillows.
The Elk Suite is the lodge's largest and only full suite: a king bed dressed in country plaids, antler accents and soft textures that nod to the woods just outside, a private sitting room, a dining nook, a kitchenette, and a double vanity bathroom with a walk-in shower. Big windows look out over the foothills. The lodge sums it up in three words — quiet, comfortable, real — and it took fifteen photographs to get all the way round it.
The Elk Suite, by its own sign.
The sitting room: the sofa and the stone fireplace.
A plaid blanket, a lantern, a bear on the wall.
The fireplace, and the bed through the opening.
The bathroom from the door; the double vanity.
Deer patches on red-and-black plaid.
A live-edge desk and a jar of pinecones.
The dining nook: four chairs, one round table.
Two basins, two black faucets.
The walk-in shower behind glass.
Deer and bears on one plaid quilt.
Three rooms and a balcony took sixteen minutes. After the Windsor Room and before the Elk Suite, Nathan photographed all three door signs one after another — the Stampede Room, the Windsor Room, the Elk Suite — forty-four seconds from the first to the third. By his camera's clock the rooms were finished at 3:45, a quarter of an hour before the lodge's 4 p.m. check-in, and not one guest is in any frame.
Through the balcony rail: fields and a horse trailer.
From the sofa to the table and the windows.
V
Breakfast
Through the breakfast tables, under the heads.
Breakfast is included at Shire Ridge Lodge: homestyle, warm and hearty, and made, the lodge says, with care and country charm. Nathan's folder calls the room the breakfast area — carved chairs at wooden tables, mounted heads on the walls, the coffee station tucked under the black-railed stairs, and the antler chandelier that the film at the top of this page circles. A guest who stayed in the Elk Suite wrote on the lodge's own page that the breakfast spread was fantastic.
Breakfast under the stairs and the antler chandelier.
Past the mounted heads toward the window.
The chandelier, the horns, the stairs going up.
Carved chairs, wooden tables, heads on the wall.
Straight down over the coffee station.
Toaster, coffee maker and fridge, under the stairs.
The breakfast room from a carved chair.
The lodge promises you will wake up to the sound of horses in the paddock. So the camera went looking for the paddock.
VI
The ranch
Horses in a paddock, then the barns.
Shire Ridge is a working ranch. Its equine side describes a 25 acre family friendly facility in Bragg Creek, just west of Calgary, with 15 indoor stalls, a heated indoor arena of 180 by 80 feet, a 50-foot indoor round pen, pastures with shelters and automatic waterers, and access to trails off the property. The stables are not open to lodge guests, so the camera stays outside and above: a sand ring, a round pen on the lawn, the paddocks and the white barns.
Straight down over a sand ring.
A round pen on the lawn, from straight above.
Over the paddocks to the mountains.
The ring, the trailers, the white barn roofs.
Head west, the lodge says, and you'll hit Kananaskis, Canmore or Banff before your coffee gets cold. The last take rises from the lodge's deck, over the white barns and the forest, until the Rockies line the horizon.
It starts at one hat on one hook. It ends at twenty-five acres and the Rockies behind them.
From the lodge's deck to the mountains.
Detail → Whole
Next14 / Bowness
Shire Ridge Lodge ends. 17 projects in the collection.
