When a house is more than just a house

Yes, it’s true, too many people in the Hamptons treat a house as so much more than just a house. In fact, if you eavesdropped on all the conversations taking place here on any given night, I’ll bet that somewhere around 30 percent of all those conversations have something to do with houses or real estate.

We all cherish our piece of the East End if we are fortunate enough to own homes here. But in reality, our houses are simply quite literally a pile of building materials envisioned by a designer and constructed by a builder. Whether made of wood, brick, stone, metal or some other material, our residences are all made from things we wouldn’t normally cherish in their natural forms.

So is a house just a house? Or

more important, what makes a house a home?

These questions were answered for me after having finished my company’s latest project on Fresh Pond Road in North Haven. After more than three years designing and permitting the 3,000-square-foot structure, this could be the one house that I have trouble parting with, quite simply because it is not just a house, but a home filled with life that grew as much from the soil it sits on as the building materials it was constructed with.

Seeing this house finished opened my eyes not only to what can actually be done when one sets one’s mind to something, but also to the many possibilities that await the construction market as green building principles are more widely adopted.

The structure was designed in close accordance with the Gaia principle—a sometimes controversial line of thinking that posits that the Earth is a single organism—meaning that it is meant to feed off the environment in much the same way that the birds, turtles and plants that surround it do.

Using no natural gas or oil, the house is completely powered by electricity, garnering as much energy from the environment as it can through its solar panel system. If solar heating and passive cooling cannot create the desired ambient temperature, a water-based geothermal system either heats through hot water in the floors, or cools through air blown over chilled water. Completely simple. And completely effective.

Instead of using fiberglass or spray-foam insulation, we decided to use a pre-made wall system that utilizes highly compacted agricultural by-products that gave us an insulation value that greatly exceeded all requirements. Basically, we used hay to insulate the house, as they did centuries ago.

What is amazing is that even on the windiest, coldest, stormiest nights, inside the house you would never have any idea of the tempest going on outside. And the house is silent, there is virtually no echo within, no matter how many people are gathering.

Something else we worked hard to incorporate was the use of daylight to illuminate the house. By using glass and translucent doors and skylights, we were able to create a house that needs virtually no artificial light while the sun is up. This might seem obvious, but think of how often you turn lights on in your house during the day and you might be surprised.

At night, we have ambient light-emitting diode (LED) lights incorporated throughout to keep the house illuminated. This way, the less than highly efficient incandescent lights need be turned on only when light is needed for a specific task.

The underlying theme behind all of the facets of this house that I find so incredibly fascinating is that when we incorporated the simple down-to-earth basics, they not only worked but outshone the more highly technical practices that we use most of the time today. Think about it: heat your house through the sun; cool your house from the cool earth; light your house from the sun; insulate your house by making thick walls with things that grow outside; and water your plants from the rain. How much more simple does it get?

I think what surprised me so much about this house is that I speak these principles all day long with people, constantly explaining them to clients and prospective clients, so much so that I became somehow removed from the actual operation. But seeing these principles functioning so beautifully within a house reminded me that this is why we are building green homes.

Is a house simply a house? Certainly not, especially when it can be something like this.