Day light and mountain views pour into this contemporary Desert Highlands home, making way for clean lines, creative touches and splashes of color—clearly the perfect setting for a local artist and her husband.

Robert and Beth Solem's Desert Highlands home was not always the charming modern and artsy space it is today. In fact, the residence—originally designed by architect Jack Peterson and built by Minchew Contractors—was built as one of the first spec homes in the Desert Highlands Community in 1980. The original home, described as a “two bedroom, contemporary Southwest style with flat roofs, a central swimming pool and a semi-detached guest house,” struck the couple as a great remodeling project. Beth, a contemporary artist and member of the executive board of contemporary forum at the Phoenix Art Museum, admits that this is a common process for her. “I’ve done every house with the idea that it had possibility,” she says.

Soon after purchasing the home in 2004, Beth and Robert, former corporate vice resident of Motorola Corp. in the 1960’s, partnered with Mike Higgins of Higgins architects and began the year-long modernizing plans. “The bones were here, we just wanted to make it better,” Higgins says. But with the prevalent shades of brown, limited views, divided rooms and wood window treatments, the house was not yet the modern haven the Solems had in mind.