There’s a new house in Lansing. It has a foundation and walls layered like an Oreo—but with extra icing in the middle—and dual flush toilets with options for No. 1 and No. 2.
But it’s a small house, fashioned after the “Not So Big” movement founded by Architect
Sarah Susanka. It’s also Lansing’s first Gold
Leadership in Environmental Design (LEED) house, and it’s available.
In real estate ad vernacular, here’s how it would be described:
1039 N. Chestnut St., 3 BR, 1 ½ ba, 1,600 s.f. bungalow; A/C, 2-car att. gar, basement w/ w-d hookup. $149,999. Flex fin. But in the mode of “If These Walls Could Talk,” the
HGTV series about historic homes, this house has a bigger story to tell.
But first you have to find it.
Old Place, New WayCruising along North Chestnut Street, you’d never know a new house was there, except for the huge sign in front declaring its LEED status, and that
Gene Townsend built it in partnership with the
Ingham County Land Bank.
The house fits in. Craftsman in both period and style, it reflects the look of other houses in the neighborhood near the vacated School for the Blind near
Old Town. Townsend says he deliberately made it so by duplicating the roof pitch, clapboard siding, window placement and front porches of the surrounding homes, so that the house would take its place in the 1920s neighborhood.
But beneath the exterior elements you’ll find 21st century components, used with a view toward economy and sustainability.
“You couldn’t afford to build a Craftsman-style house today,” says Townsend. The old way of framing and insulating would cost too much, both in the front- and back-end costs for labor and materials.
So, instead of the typical clapboards, concrete foundation and hardwood struts laced with asbestos or petroleum-based insulation, this house is wrapped in energy-efficient Oreos.
Townsend’s “cookies” are panelized foundation and walls that use a structural insulated panel system (SIP) that is fairly new to the Capital region. They have high insulation qualities, retaining more warm air in winter and cool air in summer. The walls were designed by Old Town’s
VESTA Building Industries.
For the foundation, Townsend eliminated the concrete, reducing not only the cost but also the air pollution associated with its manufacture and air seepage from the foundation. He sent foundation drawings by computer to
Great Lakes Superior Wall in Grand Rapids, where the company fabricated the interlocking pieces in three days. Lansing workers dropped them into the waiting hole in four hours.
The construction took three months from site preparation to the laying of the carpet, which is fast in the real building world. And time is money in the construction business, says Eric Schertzing of the Land Bank.
Not So Big Style
Building a well-managed, environmentally-sensitive product does not have to produce an ugly house. Townsend concentrated on details to make the bungalow attractive and comfortable.
Appropriately, much of the house’s exterior is painted a light green. Instead of flat ceilings downstairs, Townsend used different heights and angles to differentiate activity areas within one great room. Color in each area subtly shifts in shade, from light green tones like “basil” to “clay sage.”
Townsend notes this is a mechanism used by Susanka, whose “Not So Big House” philosophy suggests we should require our houses to serve our needs rather than valuing them based on mass and money.
Susanka’s first book explored the plethora of McMansion-type houses that were spacious and expensive, but included rarely used spaces like formal living and dining rooms. The buildings pay little attention to the way people actually live, she says.
She has since written seven books and developed a following.
BUILDER magazine recently named her one of the 30 most influential people in the residential construction business.
Townsend saw Susanka's work at the International Builders Show in Las Vegas two years ago and began incorporating her ideas into his designs.
When you enter the front door of Townsend's Chestnut Street house, a great room is visible, with a small sitting area to the left as well as a smaller nook to the right. Susanka describes such spaces as “away rooms,” places where a person can carve out a little privacy while still visually connected to the whole.
At the far end of the great room is the kitchen area, visually separated by a counter. Separating the living-cooking spaces is a dual-purpose tower, with a coat closet on one side and a floor-to-ceiling pantry on the other. Multi-purpose space is another Susanka tenet.
Just off the kitchen is a room with glass-paned French doors that can serve as the third bedroom, with a half-bath. Or it could be an office, an increasingly desired option as more people work from home.
Green is GoodIn addition to the “Not So Big” principles, this house also practices “the not so wasteful” approach, including sustainable features such as bamboo floors and carpeting made from recycled pop bottles. Cabinets are made with non-formaldehyde-emitting materials. Windows throughout the house are double-paned
Andersen models to reduce warm and cool air loss.
Two sizable upstairs bedrooms have cathedral ceilings. But it is the full bathroom that Townsend calls attention to, with its dual flush toilet that uses different amounts of water for solid and liquid waste. Such a toilet, at $109 builders’ price, can save a family of four up to 6,000 gallons of water per year, according to BUILDER magazine.
Also in the bathroom are mechanical ventilation system controls that allow moisture to be expelled and incoming air to be filtered for allergens. The ventilation system, along with the many energy efficiencies, helped secure the building's Gold LEED certification.
But some LEED elements are not so obvious. One involves the number of bus stops nearby, in recognition that transportation alternatives can reduce the home's overall carbon footprint and lead to a healthier community, Townsend explains. An old, platted lot in an existing neighborhood adds more points, as green leaders encourage location-efficient infill development rather than sprawl.
Purchasing a home such as this is a good investment, not only because of its curb appeal and “Not So Big” design features, but also because over time its energy expenditures will be significantly less, Townsend says.
Ever the romantic, he adds, “Living here would be like spring every day.”
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Gretchen Cochran is Capital Gains' Innovations Editor, and lives in one of Lansing’s oldest downtown houses where the walls do indeed talk.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
1039 N. Chestnut, Lansing first Gold LEED home
The structural insulated panel system
The view from the front door into the great room
Ingham County Land Bank project
Workers drill holes to run wires through the panels
The kitchen under construction
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie