The owners of this unusual luxury home set out to build “the greenest home in its class,” a place that might influence other affluent cultural and business leaders.
PROJECT TEAM
Builder
Michael Martuscello
MGM Construction
San Francisco, CA
Architect
Robert Glazier and David DaPonte
HKS Hill Glazier Studio
Palo Alto, CA
Landscape Architect
Thomas Klope Associates
Los Altos, CA
Interiors
Michael Booth
BAMO, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
A durable exterior of cedar siding and metal roofs should help this home achieve its goal of at least a 100-year lifespan. Roof runoff provides about 50,000 gallons of water annually.
Our judges did not select this home lightly. There was serious debate about whether its grandiose scale should count against its “green” building science. In the end, however, the ecological zeal of its execution won them over.
“In 30 years of residential building and remodeling, we’ve never seen commitment like this from clients,” notes Michael Martuscello. “We all worked as a team to achieve the highest green goals possible.”
The proof is in this home’s documentation. Eco-oriented features are far too numerous to list, from use of salvaged materials to site-built super windows to 100-year durability targets—it’s a showcase of the very latest building science.
And the team is refreshingly frank about good intentions that simply didn’t work—such as their attempt to build a natural swimming pool.
We literally cried over that pool,” says Martuscello, “We tried everything, but just couldn’t get it to work on this site, in this climate.
“You have to be honest with what works and what doesn’t,” he adds. “If you sugar coat this thing, then your credibility goes down the drain.”
Ultra-Efficiency
Many of the home’s most impressive details are hidden: the roof assembly, for example.
“If you look up at the ceiling, you may see FSC fir finish,” the builder explains. “But on top of that are rafters with 10 inches of blown- in insulation between them. Then on top of those are Hunter rigid, insulated panels. The roof was the most important factor in hitting the high R-values we were after.”
Exterior walls received a similar treatment, with blown in 2” x 6” cavities enclosed by a layer of rigid foam, followed by a half-inch spacer and thick (1 ¼”) cedar siding.
The home’s large custom windows also had to maximize efficiency, so the team combined glazings and frames from two companies, and put the two elements together on location.
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