With its newly fallen coat of shimmering snow wrapped around its dove-grey shingles like a hand-knitted shawl, Charlotte Moss’ Aspen home beckons her and her family, as it does every skiing season, for a welcome as warm as a cup of hot-mulled cider.

In what has become a rite of winter, interior designer Moss, her husband,  investment banker Barry Friedberg, with their cute Cavalier spaniels Oscar and Darby in tow, trade their elegant Manhattan townhouse for their tranquil chalet-style mountain home so they can kick off their big-city cares and strap on their skis.

“What makes this house so special is that I can do anything I want in Aspen,” says Moss, whose new book, “Winter House,” gives a glimpse of the special place the city and the house hold in her heart. “I can be as social as I want – I can go skiing, snow shoeing and hiking or go to parties — or I can hang out by the fire and have lunch all by myself.”

For Moss, whose clients have included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Ronald Spogli, U.S. ambassador to Italy, it’s all about relaxing. While Friedberg hits the slopes 14/7, breaking only for lunches and the occasional game of chess at the club, Moss relishes the idea of staying closer to home. “While I enjoy being outside, the ultimate luxury for me is simply sitting in bed with the dogs, some magazines and fantasy books and my cup of coffee and staying there for three or four hours. I love to get up before the rest of the world, and I love to look at the dogs sitting at my feet and snoring while they slumber,” she says. “Or I sit by the fire and needlepoint or soak in a bubble bath.”

The décor of the winter home is cocoon cozy in Moss’ signature style of traditional with a modern: Stucco walls, slate-stone floors and a mix of international furnishings, including an Irish cupboard and Italian painted pieces, are as inviting as the flickering fire. “The winter look is about taking things out of the cupboard, it’s about adding and subtracting things to make you feel comfortable so you don’t get cabin fever,” she says.

Putting her Aspen home in a winter frame of mind is all about “changing the little things,” Moss says. “I like to think of it as a layered look; it’s just like changing into your winter wardrobe.”

The winter wardrobe of warm woods upholstered in dark velvets and suedes takes on a firelight glow when Moss adds her seasonal touches: baby-soft throws on the chairs that make her long to curl up with a novel, plush pillows lavishly decorated with tassels and trims, darker shades on lamps and ever-aromatic evergreens. Winter blows into the living room with blues, snow whites and greens. “The blue and white paisley upholstery brings out the blue and white in the Delft and faience china,” she says. “And the dark green velvet sofa and green lampshades give warmth to the room, which has high ceilings. A sisal rug, which most people associate with summer, gives texture and lightness.”

In the dining room, which shares space with the living room, it is the linens, china, centerpiece and flowers that set the winter mood at the long 19th Century French table that seats 14. “I change them for every occasion,” Moss says. “This gives a personal touch to each meal.”

Perhaps the coziest room of the house is the master bedroom, where a French-style canopy bed, whose soothing stucco-color paisley-patterned fabric is punctuated by elaborate antique tiebacks,  “has arms that wrap around you,” Moss says. A sisal carpet, overlaid by a needlepoint rug, is as easy on the bare feet as it is on sleep-filled eyes.      

While the winter house’s stone-stacked wall keeps the worries of the world at bay, the home is, Moss, says, made for family and friends as well as solitary pursuits. When the holidays come, so do the guests. Friedberg’s two grown sons bring their significant others, and Moss’ siblings and their children settle in.

Sometimes, they pop corn and watch TV; sometimes they head to the kitchen,  where they chat as Moss prepares what she calls simple “kitchen-sink” fare like piping hot chili and crusty mouth-watering bread served with a bottle of wine. Other times, everyone congregates in the game room to try their hands at billiards, cards, chess or Scrabble.    

But the house has been known to come out of hibernation for long periods. Moss says the season wouldn’t be complete without her annual all-girls pajama party, and Friedberg and his grown sons often use the house as a weekend retreat whose main purpose is what Moss calls “Dad bonding time.”

Moss loves to add little winter touches to make all of her guests feel at home. She fills the guest rooms with bouquets of fresh-cut flowers and evergreens and lights candles in spicy scents like fig or pine. “A winter house is a state of mind,” she says. “You don’t have to have a separate house to get the feel. You just have to think about your house in a fresh way, even if that means just rearranging the furniture. It all boils down to hospitality.”

Hospitality in Moss’ winter house includes making each guest room special. “First of all, I decide who to put in each room,” she says. “I may put my nieces in the room with the twin beds so they can gab. Or I may put all the boys on one floor and all the girls on another. Then I go through each room, look at the books and select the ones that I feel each guest will want to read.”

But for guests to really feel at home, so must the host, and that’s why Moss so loves her Aspen house right down to its strap-hinged shutters and antique porch pillars. Playing the hostess is as spontaneous as the season’s first snowfall, the one that makes Moss rush outdoors with her tongue out and savor the ice-silvery flakes that melt in her mouth.

Regardless of where she and Friedberg are or what they are doing, Moss says that the most important thing, whether it is winter or summer or in between, is “that we are all together.”