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The
Greenest of the Green Cynthia Curtis didn’t intend to make Wellesley history. She just wanted a small house near the center of town with a back yard where she could garden and her two dogs, Bosco and Coco, could romp.
With its dormer windows, gabled roof, and clapboard siding, Curtis’s house blends right in with the modest colonials and capes on quiet, tree-lined Avon Street in the College Heights section of town. Until a year ago, a 4,400-square-foot house appeared destined to consume just about every available inch of its steep, rocky lot. But the McMansion met its match in a green house little more than half its size. It was built by a quartet of extraordinarily motivated people: a client with a green mind and a gift for marketing; an architect with an unfulfilled passion; a builder with an eye for detail and the fortitude to scale a mountain of documentation; and a landscaper with a long commitment to green practices. They surmounted a host of natural and manmade obstacles: an irregularly shaped lot; strict zoning regulations; and a checklist for LEED for Homes certification that required a 114-page booklet and an all-day seminar to explain. But all agree the result was worth it. The three-bedroom house features a sun-splashed garden room with a cathedral ceiling, slate floor, and remote-controlled skylights; radiant heating that toasts the toes when you climb out of bed (and into the shower); a through-wall gas fireplace that adds romance to the dining and living rooms; and, throughout, handsome bamboo floors and custom-made cabinets and shelving. Curtis originally wanted to buy a small house, but when she couldn’t find one that suited her needs she took the plunge and built her own. She bought the lot from a developer who had obtained town approval to build a house double the size of the one that had been there before. Declining to scale down his plans for Curtis, he agreed to sell the property.
Although she knew about LEED houses, Curtis initially didn’t set her bar that high. “I don’t consider myself to be a rabid environmentalist,” she says. “But you can do little things, like the fluorescent light bulb, taking a canvas bag to the store. … It seemed like a no-brainer to me to do an energy-efficient home to the extent I could afford.” She was inspired by an article in WellesleyWeston Magazine’s Summer 2007 issue about a small home (by Wellesley standards) with green features. Impressed, she contacted the architect, Jan Gleysteen, whose Route 9 office happens to be less than a mile from her lot. It was serendipitous. “This is an opportunity I’d been waiting for…to do a sustainable-designed house,” Gleysteen says. “This was something I was very passionate about.” Three decades ago, when the United States was reeling from the Arab oil embargo, Gleysteen studied energy-efficient design while at university. But by the time he launched his career, the price of oil—and interest in conservation—was on the decline. By designing the Curtis home to LEED standards, Gleysteen saw an opportunity to tap the experience from his student days and bring both himself and his staff up to speed on green building techniques. “Cynthia was really great,” he says. “For her and for me, it was a little bit of a leap of faith”—and an expensive one at that. Because it is relatively new, green building costs 10-to-15 percent more than conventional construction. To sweeten the deal, Gleysteen cut his fees. “I said if I’m going to invest money into this venture by supplying a significant portion of my services out of my own pocket, you need to be willing to invest money into this sustainable design.”
Catching
the rays From the start, Curtis wanted to tap the sun’s energy in her home. The team decided the most economically feasible way to do so was for heat and hot water. Next it had to solve a puzzle: how to position the house on its L-shaped lot to maximize solar exposure while complying with the town’s setback rules. Andrea Shurtleff, who managed the project for Gleysteen, achieved the best possible orientation with just inches to spare. The main part of the house faces southwest (due south would have been be ideal), its solar panels capturing the afternoon sun. A second array of panels absorbs the morning sun from a perch on the garden room, which extends at an angle off the kitchen. Besides fitting the house into the lot, Team Curtis made sure its look fit that of its 80-year-old neighborhood. Gleysteen chose the Arts and Crafts style, but with contemporary touches. Among them: vertical clapboard on the second floor to contrast with the more typical horizontal siding on the first. To deemphasize the solar panels, Gleysteen nestled them among prominent dormers. The effect was to create “a stealth solar house,” as he and host Steve Thomas remarked on Renovation Nation.
The solar-heating system—installed by Clean Energy Design of Osterville—sends water racing (otherwise it could freeze) between the roof and a 1,000-gallon tank in the basement, where the instrument panels resemble those of a ship’s engine room. Curtis hopes the sun will supply 70 percent of her heat and hot water needs; a natural-gas furnace backs it up during cloudy spells. A warren of tubing under the floors—including that of the garage— provides radiant heat, which does not require as high a water temperature as baseboard heat. Curtis’s summer cooling bills will be the cost of operating an attic fan, which can suck warm air out of most of the house, and ceiling fans. She hopes a few simple steps—such as drawing shades and closing windows during peak heat—will keep her comfortable on all but the steamiest days. Not
green enough While energy-saving items account for about a third of possible LEED points, the certification system is geared also to promoting recycling of construction waste, drought-resistant landscaping, green building products, and higher density housing. If your lot happens to be within blocks of stores and public transit, your house has an instant advantage. The LEED process does not reward solid, traditional construction, but rather new and unconventional techniques. “If the new stuff is based on a tried-and-true technology, we’ll trust it,” he says. “If it’s based on a new technology, we’ll wait until someone else tests it for five years.” Curtis, for example, chose granite for the kitchen countertops rather than a paper composite material. “I’m sure it is fine, but I didn’t want to risk my entire kitchen on something that was so new,” she says.
As to the mahogany front door Curtis had her heart set on, that was out of the question. It alone would have disqualified the house from certification. The LEED for Homes checklist calls for wood that is grown within 500 miles (to keep the transportation impact down) or approved by the Forest Stewardship Council, a not-for-profit group that promotes “the responsible management of the world’s forests.” As a result, the front door is fir. Since green building is relatively new, products can be more expensive and tougher to find. Low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) paint—that doesn’t emit unhealthy fumes—costs twice as much as regular paint. The dimmable compact fluorescent bulbs didn’t arrive until nearly two months after Curtis moved in. At times, Team Curtis found LEED’s strict rules maddening. Take, for example, the clapboard siding, which is made out of a cement material called hardy board. It looks like wood, but is more durable. It won’t rot and will last longer between paint jobs. But because it had to be shipped from a factory in Texas—outside the LEED 500-mile limit—the hardy board didn’t earn any points.
Going green does have its cost advantages. Thanks to LEED’s emphasis on low-flow plumbing fixtures, Curtis shunned expensive, multi-spray showers. But she did pay extra for dual flush toilets that offer the choice of using half as much water. Because LEED encourages drought-resistant plantings, Curtis didn’t need an irrigation system. Her landscaper, Roger B. Sturgis, says he minimized the lawn area by creating a number of beds, which he filled with compost-rich soil that readily retains moisture. Curtis snapped photos of the site at different times of the day and sent them to her sister, a horticulturalist in Philadelphia who helped select appropriate plants. Team Curtis also saved money and scored points by building walls out of rock dug up during construction and by finishing the driveway with gravel instead of asphalt. Rainwater seeps through the gravel into the ground, rather than running off into the street. The burden of going green fell heaviest on Lane and Shurtleff. They had to fill out reams of paperwork. Among Lane’s biggest headaches were sorting waste for recycling and tracking its ultimate disposal. Lane had to squeeze three dumpsters on the tight lot and carefully choreograph the movement of heavy equipment around them. Still, Lane says of the project overall: “We had a lot fun doing this. Cynthia had such a great attitude. It was contagious.”
The
pioneers Recognizing that few people are in a position to build from the ground up, Curtis wants to use her house as a showcase to encourage others to incorporate green features when they remodel. On a chilly day in late fall, she held an open house to thank her neighbors for enduring the construction project and to show just how cozy a green house can be. At the party, a woman who lives down the street recalled spotting a gigantic deer by the side of Curtis’s house: “He was standing very still. The only reason we knew he was alive was because he was breathing in and out. He seemed very at peace.” Perhaps that’s the ultimate seal of approval.
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Instead,
Curtis ended up building
the first single-family
home in town certified
under the stringent
standards for Leadership
in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED). In
January, it received
a gold certification
(the second highest
of four award levels),
becoming one of only
34 LEED-approved residential
projects in the state
and 724 in the nation.
Wellesley already
has several LEED-certified
townhouses.
Curtis
also invested her
own considerable promotional
skills, honed as international
marketing manager
for a computer security
firm. Vivacious and
telegenic, she has
already appeared on
an episode of Renovation
Nation, with builder
Michael Lane. Team
Curtis selected the
Southborough-based
Lane because he is
a small solo builder
who could devote extra
attention demanded
by the rigorous LEED
standards. “It
couldn’t
be one of several
projects, it had to
be the central focus,” Gleysteen
says. This was Lane’s
first LEED home. “It
was kind of cool to
learn all about it,” he
says. “Jan
is cutting edge. It’s
an actual privilege
to hang out with him
and his team.”
The
windows might be described
as stealth high tech.
A visual throwback
to the Prairie Style
of Frank Lloyd Wright,
they are double pane
for maximum energy
efficiency. In addition,
windows facing toward
the south have a coating
that lets in the sun’s
heat—but
only when it’s
wanted. Deep overhangs
block the steep rays
of summer while letting
in the slanted rays
of winter. 
Curtis
did opt to go with
bamboo flooring, which
scores points because
it comes from a rapid
growing grass. Concerned
about its durability,
she had Lane thoroughly
research the brands.
The builder came up
with flooring pre-finished
at the factory, giving
it a tougher surface.