Resort Living
With a view of the Organ Mountains, a quiet neighborhood, personal homemade art, and a relaxing atmosphere, homeowners Tim and Deanna Muir have created their own resort.
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In Las Cruces, New Mexico, El Paso’s sister city, Tim and Deanna Muir’s Coronado Ridge home was designed around the view.
From the beginning, every house in the gated hillside community was planned so the Organ Mountains and the city below could remain part of daily life. For the Muirs, that landscape became more than a backdrop. It became the organizing principle for a contemporary renovation that turned a once-Southwestern-style residence into a quiet, light-filled home filled with art, glass, and intention.
“Our favorite time is at night, with the city lights,” Tim said. “It’s very peaceful.”
The couple did not fully understand the magic of that view when they first purchased the home. They saw it during the day, when the horizon and mountains already made an impression. But at night, the house revealed another layer.
“The purchase was done during the daytime, and we never realized how amazing that view is at night,” Tim said.
To preserve it, the couple lowered the backyard fence to 2 1/2 feet, opening the home more fully to the city lights without sacrificing the privacy that defines the neighborhood. Inside, windows were placed and preserved to keep the eye moving outward toward the horizon and the Organ Mountains.
The renovation began with subtraction. The home originally had a more traditional Southwestern feel, including six large pillars at the entrance.
“The day we took ownership, we called the contractor up, and we wanted them out,” Deanna said.
From there, the Muirs rebuilt the interior with contemporary sensibility. Walls came down. Rooms opened up. The floor plan shifted to fit the original footprint, creating an effect Tim still enjoys pointing out. The flooring runs uniformly in the same direction throughout the house, but because the rooms are set at angles, it appears to run diagonally as guests move from one space to another.
In the living room, custom floating shelves keep the space clean and architectural. In the kitchen, completely custom cabinetry continues the seamless effect. Even the dishwasher facade matches the cabinets, and large porcelain slabs move across the counters and behind the cabinetry with a lighter feel than granite.
Nearly every part of the home bears evidence of custom work. The doors were handmade, and the woodwork was completed on-site. Many of the requests were new to the contractors and designers working on the project.
“Las Cruces hadn’t really seen that level of build before,” Tim said.
Deanna remembers the cabinetmakers warning them early in the process.
“None of us are used to doing what you’re talking about, so you’re going to have to be patient,” she recalls them saying.
“A lot of it was trial and error,” Tim said. “We really felt like everybody was trying so hard to make it special.”
What gives the home its most personal signature, however, is Deanna’s glass mosaic art. Her pieces appear throughout the home, from wall art and hallway installations to functional side tables and a custom glass hood over the outdoor grill inspired by White Sands National Park.
“I mostly work with stained glass,” Deanna said. “I’ve tried lots of different mediums. I started about nine years ago, didn’t know how to do any of it. I picked up a book and learned the basics and started from there.”
Tim is quick to point out the scale of her ambition. “Deanna’s scale is never this size,” he said, gesturing small with his hands. “It’s always big.”
The result is a home filled with color and detail, but never clutter. The height of the rooms gives each piece room to breathe. Light moves through the back of the house at sunset. At every turn, another detail appears, whether a ribbon of glass, a custom door, or a surface chosen after a long search.
“I find one thing that I want to start with, and then I just go with it,” Deanna said. “I look very hard and very long for everything. I’m very detail-oriented.”
The home was planned as a forever home, a place for hosting, family and long evenings with friends. Guests often compare it to a resort.
Tim jokes that sometimes, the challenge is not making people feel welcome. It is getting them to leave.
Now, as the Muirs prepare to move to Miami to be closer to their son, the Coronado Ridge home stands as a carefully built chapter in their lives. It is contemporary, deeply personal and unmistakably theirs, a house shaped by patience, craftsmanship and the glow of Las Cruces at night.










