Where vision takes shape: Open Range’s all-in-one approach to beauty and functionality

Open Range brings design, construction, and landscaping under one roof for the ultimate ease of its clients. Photo: Open Range

MIDVALE, Utah — Open Range, a design, build, and landscape firm, is redefining how homeowners and businesses experience building and remodeling—guided by the expertise of its award-winning designers, builders and landscape professionals.

Chief Executive Officer, Molly Louthan described Open Range as a one-stop shop for architecture, design, build and landscaping.

“We provide a one-stop shop for high-end homeowners, businesses and developers. Where we can do architecture, design, general contracting services and landscaping all under one roof,” Louthan said. “Clients work with one project manager, one point of contact, making it as easy as possible.”

Louthan and her husband, Andrew Means who serves as Chief Growth Officer, relocated to Park City after spending 15 years in Chicago. The couple originally met in Chicago and moved west after extensive travel during the pandemic. “We drove, I think, 30,000 miles in the first year and a half of COVID, into Park City, fell in love with the community,” she said.

In March 2023, Open Range acquired the interior design firm Lisman Studio, followed by the acquisition of Land Design by Armstrong, in March 2024. By the summer of that year, both businesses were unified under the Open Range brand, marking the company’s expansion into comprehensive construction services.

Open Range strongly focuses on customer experience, particularly transparency in pricing and contract structures. The company uses fixed-price bidding, which, as Louthan said, helps align the firm’s incentives with its clients.

“We’re incentivized to get the project done on time and on budget, because it’s our time and our budget,” she said, underlining their client-first approach.

“We don’t have a fixed design aesthetic that we try to impose on a project. What we’re really good at is drawing out what our clients are trying to achieve and bringing that vision to life in a cohesive and professional way. Our goal is that you don’t immediately recognize it as our project—it’s our client’s project,” said Louthan.

While both founders come from outside the design and construction industries — Means from a background in technology and nonprofit consulting, and Louthan from supply chain and technology consulting — they view their ‘outsider’ status as a strength. “We really felt like we could help these businesses run well, and then we hire really excellent designers, construction leaders, project managers,” she said, crediting the firm’s artisans and craftsmen for its creative success.

Open Range has been very intentional about getting different experiences, perspectives, design esthetics from its team members.

In tandem with budget and client priorities, Open Range approaches every project with the lens of beauty and functionality. Louthan explains that it’s very simple to make beautiful spaces, but it’s more challenging to make a beautiful space functional and sustainable.