Architects Beth Reader and Chuck Swartz remodeled their Virginia tract home (see “before” shot below) to make the most of its mountain views. The addition added an extra 700 square feet on two floors and required no variances.

Photo Credit: Hoachlander Davis Photography

It’s a strategic dilemma keeping more than a few builders up at night as they ride out the downturn: Do you batten down and stick with what you know, or go for broke and try something new with hopes of jogging skittish buyers out of their petrified state? Many builders are understandably reluctant to mess with their supply chain formulas, subcontractor relationships, and hard-earned reputations, knowing that one false move could render them a casualty of the housing recession. But many also realize their only hope of survival may be to do something distinctive that sets them apart.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have, at your disposal, a handful of risk-­takers willing to put their own money on the line and serve as canaries in the proverbial coal mine—whether the potentially lucrative (or deadly) experiment involves a hybrid building method, a space-age material, a high-performance system, or alternative architecture in an old school neighborhood?

Truth is, you do. Look no further than architects and designers building their own houses. Always on a tight budget, forever aesthetically minded, and increasingly eco-­conscious, they’re usually more than willing to talk shop. Builder reached out to a few such renegades and took a peek inside the places they’ve built for themselves.

Photo Credit: reader & swartz architects

Birkenstock Not: “A lot of green stuff still looks like an igloo or a yurt,” says architect Kevin deFreitas. “I started wondering if the same goals could be achieved with modern aesthetics,” hence the exterior cladding of stucco, slate, and steel. The stucco is a commercial-grade product (with integral color that can be matched to any paint chip color) that doesn’t crack or fade.

Photo Credit: David Harrison

Green Machine

"Pay now, save later" is the mantra of this super-performance house.

Kevin deFreitas never fancied himself much of a tree hugger. But when he started designing his own house and studio on a teardown lot in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego, he realized the sustainable pieces were easy enough to incorporate—and frankly, too fiscally smart not to do. Within months of moving in with his family in September 2007, he’d cut his utility bills by 65 percent.

The house, which is expected to achieve LEED Gold, is both super energy efficient and systemically economical in that many of its engines are multipurpose. Take the concrete foundation, which doubles as a durable flooring substrate and a natural medium for passive heating and cooling. “We poured the concrete for the slab and then used floor buffers with diamond bits to cut it in eight different passes to reveal the aggregate,” the architect explains. “It looks like terrazzo but it’s really just structural slab—and it’s twice as hard as regular concrete by the time they are done because the process closes all the pores.”

Recipe for Reduction: Sustainable and energy-saving features in the kitchen include quartz countertops, radiant concrete floors, Energy Star appliances, hands-free faucets, and cabinets made from sustainably harvested pau ferro, an African hardwood.

Photo Credit: David Harrison

At 4,516 square feet, the home relies on a single solar-powered boiler for all of its domestic hot water. That same water is piped through subfloor mechanicals for radiant heating. “On a typical day, we can cook 90 gallons to 145 degrees, which is even too hot to move,” says deFreitas. “Cool water is added as it moves through the mixing valves, so that 90 gallons is really equivalent to 120 gallons once it is diluted.”

In the kitchen, hands-free faucets outfitted with mini-turbines operate independent of an electrical source. “As the water goes through, it charges its own battery,” he says, adding that the stream is set to go off after 10 seconds. “We tried to automate a lot of things, especially in the children’s spaces because they don’t think to turn things off. The lights in their closets and bathrooms have motion sensors.”

At the end of the day, the whole house—including deFreitas’ attached studio with all its printers, faxes, scanners, and computers—derives about 60 percent of its electrical power from a 4.8 kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic system. In lieu of a standard $12,000 asphalt roof with a 12-year warranty (which would have needed replacing at least twice over the course of 45 years), deFreitas sprung for a $21,000 infrared-deflecting metal roof with a 40-year warranty. Maintenance-free benefits notwithstanding, its secondary advantage was that solar panels could be attached to its standing seams without roof penetration, thus eliminating the potential for leaks. “Intellectually, I couldn’t put on a new roof and then perforate it with 320 screw holes,” says deFreitas. “I found a clamp I could put on those 2-inch ridges and then affix the PV [photovoltaic] panels to the clamps. It’s a pressure system of clamping rather than a mechanical screw.”

Additional green features include 100 percent recycled commercial-grade carpet, dual-flush toilets, reclaimed aluminum factory windows, Energy Star–rated appliances, a rainwater collection system built into the valley of a butterfly roof, a $10 per square foot synthetic turf lawn that needs no watering or mowing, and drought-tolerant plants fed by an outdoor irrigation system that has cut water consumption by 70 percent. “The system outfits each individual plant with its own drip head, which encourages deeper root growth but uses less water (one gallon total per hour). We end up watering individual plants, but not weeds,” says deFreitas.

Double framing (and therefore double the blow-in insulation) along the west and south elevations provides an extra barrier against heat gain. And the home’s narrow massing—each of its parallel volumes is just 18 feet wide—creates natural ventilation and eliminates the need for air conditioning. The cost to build the home was $265 per square foot for a total price tag of about $1 million—a modest outlay in this upscale section of San Diego where comparably sized homes can command upwards of $4 million. And deFreitas anticipates long-term savings on energy, and maintenance costs will easily offset the estimated 8 percent budget hike required for high-performance systems and materials.

“A huge aspect of this house was to make it, as [modernist architect] Le Corbusier said, a ‘machine for living,’ ” deFreitas says. “The house is here to serve us rather than the other way around.”

Cute Angles: Bookshelves nestled into the triangular shape of the home’s original roof gable (left) are accessed by a space-saving oak and maple staircase—the treads of which extend across the width of the stair to create display shelving.

Photo Credit: Hoachlander Davis Photography

Gable-Bodied

A site-sensitive remodel reinvents a tract house and salvages its best qualities.

It wasn’t the existing 1968 tract house with its dowdy façade and ­standard-issue floor plan that sold architects Beth Reader and Chuck Swartz on this property in Winchester, Va. It was the lot’s spectacular rear view of the Blue Ridge Mountains—and the fact that it was a 10-minute walk to town.

The first order of business in the remodel—which purposely stayed within setback requirements so as not to require any easements—was to flip the original plan on its head, putting bedrooms below and open living spaces up top with lots of glass to maximize those views. (A 30-foot drop in grade over the 100-foot depth of the lot ­allows for panoramic sightlines over the rooftops of homes farther down the ridge.)

“The original house was the worst response to the site,” Reader recalls, noting that initially some of the second-floor bedrooms had ceilings as low as 6 feet 8 inches due to bulkheads. “The best windows were in the garage, while all the others were tiny. It was such a dumb house it made us mad, but there was nothing there to respect, so we didn’t feel guilty about gutting it.”

The home’s front elevation (above) maintains a modest profile that respects the scale of the street.

Photo Credit: Hoachlander Davis Photography

There was one piece of anatomy, though, the couple creatively salvaged from the home’s former self. Existing studs and gable ends on the south elevation were stripped and repurposed to create the structural framework for a wall of bookshelves in the great room (the upper echelons of which are accessible via a built-in staircase, shown above, and a vintage telephone company ladder). The ghost of the original 4/12 gable roof is still expressed in the shelving, only now the roof rests under scissor trusses that vault the ceiling height to 21 feet. As an accent, the couple hired a local stained glass artist to make cobalt blue corner panes for a boomerang-shaped bank of clerestory windows resting atop that original gable.

But not everything in the makeover is custom-made. In conceiving the design, Reader and Swartz followed the same advice they dispense to clients with limited funds: Put money into the permanent parts (in this case, a standing seam metal roof, steel structural frame, and exterior cedar cladding), and go thriftier on interior finishes, which tend to be more ephemeral anyhow. The kitchen takes this ethos to heart, featuring birch veneer flat slab Ikea cabinets, drawer pulls from Lowe’s, and laminate countertops.

“We were running out of money in a big way, so the kitchen is pretty basic except for the appliances,” says Reader, estimating the cost of the remodel at around $144 per square foot. “We figure we can always replace the countertops or cabinets down the line.”

Industrial Strength: Perched on a hillside, the urban-style home is locked into the slope by 16 concrete pilings driven 30 feet deep into the ground.

Photo Credit: Lara Swimmer

Natural State

Simple, honest forms prove stunning in Seattle.

Designer/developer Sean Bell is a big believer in letting construction materials be themselves. “I like to work with very basic elements—wood, concrete, glass, and steel—and I don’t like to paint things,” says the Seattle native, whose penchant for exposed structure and natural finishes has produced an archipelago of savory little houses about town (this is his fourth). Not only are they green, but also fairly economical to build. His current personal residence follows suit in that it pares the building program down to bare necessity and then celebrates the inherent beauty of that simplicity. “This house has no doors, no trim, and no baseboard, so that whole phase of the budget and construction was eliminated,” Bell says. The walls are plain medium-density fiberboard (no sheetrock), and the floors are lightweight concrete sourced from half a mile away. Basic fluorescent lighting fixtures, softened with shrouds of inexpensive rayon fabric, are suspended from the ceiling’s exposed glulam beams.

“A lot of the framing ends up being exposed, so you almost have to operate like a finish carpenter from the start, which adds expense, but in the end it still ends up being cheaper because you are using less material overall,” Bell says. Plus, no drywall means easy access for behind-the-wall systems. “For example, when we had an alarm system installed, we simply removed a few screws, popped the panels off where we needed to put in wires, and then put the panels back. There was no cutting holes in the sheetrock, remudding, or repainting the walls.”

Poplar Choice: A poplar wood screen separating the front entry from the main living spaces provides structural support for stair risers and allows light to permeate the interior.

Photo Credit: Lara Swimmer

Another cost saver was the land—a steep infill lot in an urban mudslide zone, which Bell acquired at a nice price because it abutted a freeway in an industrial part of town. (He then subdivided the parcel into three high-density lots.) Setback requirements whittled the building envelope down to a mere 70 feet deep by 18 feet wide, but the galley plan doesn’t feel claustrophobic, thanks to exposed beams and obscured glass walls that break up the monotony. Creating a transitional layer between the front entry and the home’s open kitchen, dining, and living area, a handsome poplar screen lends structural support for stairs leading up to the third-story bedrooms.

“Green has become sort of a marketing buzzline,” says Bell, estimating this home rang up at about $200 per square foot. “For me it’s simply about going minimal, using as little material as possible, and using recycled materials. I try to embrace the whole cradle-to-cradle idea.”

Light Touch: Residential designer David Kenoyer’s big splurge was simulated divided-lite windows with sashes and muntins painted rust red, which he scored at a discount for $13,000 (compared to a standard market rate of about $18,000). Another custom touch: Hardiplank siding with mitered corners (in lieu of cornerboard) for a crisp finish.

Photo Credit: KDK Design

Stock Trade

Streamlined aesthetics help lower building costs in a traditional town.

When residential designer David Kenoyer began assembling the parts for his own house on a quarter acre lot in the suburbs outside Raleigh, N.C., he envisioned a residence that was clearly custom, but not radical to the point of offending the neighbors or hindering resale potential. He also had a budget to contend with. So he set tradition as his baseline and looked for subtle aesthetic and cost trade-offs, staging a quiet revolution rather than an overt one.

Crown and shoe molding were among the first things to go. “I wanted clean lines anyway; and when I eliminated shoe mold from the baseboards, I got a credit of 15 cents per foot from the flooring subcontractors,” Kenoyer says. Funds he would have spent on molding were then reallocated to cover three strategically placed 1x6 pine “art walls” painted bold accent colors in the home’s communal living areas.

Custom interior door and window casings proved cost neutral (equivalent in price to standard Howe casings) but offered an alternative accent to solid MDF doors with routed profiles. “My design required three pieces instead of two, but the trim guy didn’t charge more because my version didn’t have mitered corners, so it was easier to install,” he says. “It’s funny … you get in this mindset that more pieces will automatically mean higher prices, but in actuality, the three pieces I bought cost less because they were standard stock.”

Outside, the home’s classic four-square, “five-over-four and a door” façade complements the rest of the street while keeping framing costs to a minimum. In lieu of a big porch, Kenoyer went with a compact front entry that puts fine touches at eye level, including chunky 18-inch diameter columns, fine cornice detailing, a bluestone stoop, an 8-foot Spanish cedar door with a cedar surround of 1x6 flush shiplap siding, and custom wall brackets instead of pilasters. “I could have used the smaller porch with the same level of detail you normally see in a market house and it would have cost half as much, but instead I ended up with a very custom porch for the same price as a spec home porch,” he says.

Nice Spice: This house intentionally forgoes crown molding and favors brightly painted pine-panel walls as its predominant interior accents.

Photo Credit: KDK Design

Built for roughly $100 per square foot (total price tag $400,000, including land), the 3,400-square-foot home is no different from the neighbors in price, but different enough in its homespun details to turn a few heads. “There is something about a house that’s too perfect that I don’t like,” Kenoyer says. “It just doesn’t feel as authentic.”

It wasn’t the existing 1968 tracthouse with its dowdy façade and ­standard-issue floor plan that sold architects Beth Reader and Chuck Swartz on this property in Winchester, Va. It was the lot’s spectacular rear view of the Blue Ridge Mountains—and the fact that it was a 10-minute walk to town.

The first order of business in the remodel—which purposely stayed within setback requirements so as not to require any easements—was to flip the original plan on its head, putting bedrooms below and open living spaces up top with lots of glass to maximize those views. (A 30-foot drop in grade over the 100-foot depth of the lot ­allows for panoramic sightlines over the rooftops of homes farther down the ridge.)

“The original house was the worst response to the site,” Reader recalls, noting that initially some of the second-floor bedrooms had ceilings as low as 6 feet 8 inches due to bulkheads. “The best windows were in the garage, while all the others were tiny. It was such a dumb house it made us mad, but there was nothing there to respect, so we didn’t feel guilty about gutting it.”

There was one piece of anatomy, though, the couple creatively salvaged from the home’s former self. Existing studs and gable ends on the south elevation were stripped and repurposed to create the structural framework for a wall of bookshelves in the great room (the upper echelons of which are accessible via a built-in staircase, shown above, and a vintage telephone company ladder). The ghost of the original 4/12 gable roof is still expressed in the shelving, only now the roof rests under scissor trusses that vault the ceiling height to 21 feet. As an accent, the couple hired a local stained glass artist to make cobalt blue corner panes for a boomerang-shaped bank of clerestory windows resting atop that original gable.

But not everything in the makeover is custom-made. In conceiving the design, Reader and Swartz followed the same advice they dispense to clients with limited funds: Put money into the permanent parts (in this case, a standing seam metal roof, steel structural frame, and exterior cedar cladding), and go thriftier on interior finishes, which tend to be more ephemeral anyhow. The kitchen takes this ethos to heart, featuring birch veneer flat slab Ikea cabinets, drawer pulls from Lowe’s, and laminate countertops.

“We were running out of money in a big way, so the kitchen is pretty basic except for the appliances,” says Reader, estimating the cost of the remodel at around $144 per square foot. “We figure we can always replace the countertops or cabinets down the line.”

Tinker Toy

Far-out ideas find a safe place to germinate on Midwestern soil.

Photo Credit: Farshid Assassi

Anchored in the Nebraska prairie like an abandoned spacecraft left to rust, Randy Brown’s house isn’t the sort of structure that can be replicated in Everytown, USA. But that’s not its purpose. This quirky outpost, which the architect describes as a “laboratory for experimentation,” serves as a testing ground for ideas that may or may not ever make their way into plans for paying clients. College architecture and engineering students have formed the on-site crews responsible for each stage of its evolution.

Dynamic spaces are a hallmark of this unusual residence, with its cantilevered walls, floating staircases, and handmade window frames of hot-rolled steel that were welded on site. Some of the most playful passages were done on the cheap—such as a scrap lumber partition that cost $320 to build and serves as a privacy screen around a toilet. Sustainability is an ongoing part of the experiment, as seen in the home’s insulated concrete forms, rubber roof membrane system, radiant flooring, heat pumps, and green roof rainwater collection system. Geothermal and photovoltaic panels are coming soon.

Fresh takes on standard living spaces often gel in a roundabout way. Take the pod-like sleeping quarters for the architect’s two young sons. “During construction we had designed fairly large bedrooms and bathrooms for the boys with a small study area and TV room in between. Then we realized the logical thing would be to reverse that, making the bedrooms and bathrooms small, and the play space big,” Brown says. “The problem was, we’d already run the plumbing for the previous configuration. So we ended up building the rooms up on a platform that allowed the mechanicals to stay underneath and accommodate the change.”

Photo Credit: Frashid Assassi

The home’s most arresting feature by far is its telescopic living room, a projecting box that frames views of the countryside and provides passive heating and cooling, by nature of its deep overhangs and southern orientation. Clad in 12-gauge hot-rolled steel, the volume is very low maintenance. “I wanted it to look like a rusty old tractor in the field,” says Brown, who derives many of his aesthetic influences from the rural landscape.

Resting in the shadows of this dominant structure, you almost don’t notice the site’s original ranch house—the existence of which is what allowed Brown to purchase land in a nature preserve. Painted a neutral gray and connected to the rest of the house via an enclosed corridor bridge, it is soon to be gutted and transformed into a kitchen and dining wing.

“The house is sort of an ongoing toy I like to play with,” says Brown, confessing that the project has already undergone too many construction phases to count in the nine years since he bought the land. (It wasn’t until last year that he and his family finally moved in.) “Experimenting on ourselves has worked well and now we are using some of the elements—particularly the custom window frame details—in other projects.”