A Passive House in Weston Goes Beyond Energy Efficiency

The short upper and taller lower windows of this suburban Boston home are arranged in vertical bays for a symmetrical facade interrupted only by the recessed entry, which offers protection from the elements.

The view from the front door to a dining room designed for parties showcases the kitchen’s custom quarter-sawn oak cabinetry and ipe floors—not a sustainable material but bought from a discontinued lot so acceptable to the homeowners.

A switch allows the Bocci wall lights, which look almost like glass paper weights, to turn on and off as one.

Intersecting rectangles form the combination kitchen table and island, which is clad in soapstone and has a waterfall countertop.

The primary bath’s vanity top serves as a dark counterpoint to an otherwise light room with a Victoria + Albert soaking tub and Carrara marble with a ribbed “spaghetti” texture on the floor and walls.

The upper landing features sight lines to the rooftop deck and a Bocci bobble pendant light fixture. The wood handrail tops partial glass walls, keeping the space open.

The new dining room is surrounded by transom windows, French doors, and a seven-foot slatted pergola (supported by reclaimed beams) that reduces the direct light going into the house.

Reclaimed Materials Shape a Contemporary Sustainable Home

Building a passive house in Weston, Massachusetts, with all that entails, was just step one for a builder and homeowners who care deeply about combatting climate change. Concerned as well about embodied carbon, they sourced what furniture, materials, and interior finishes they could from vintage shops, resale websites, salvage yards, and elsewhere. A plus for the wallet, a minus for the dumpster.

If all that makes you think, “admirable,” even as you picture a tiny home full of boho clutter, think again. The house is a 4,120-square-foot showstopper, with secondhand market finds including everything from high-end items like Bocci lighting, Waterworks plumbing fixtures, ipe flooring, and slate roof tiles to more workaday rigid foam insulation and wood beams.

Designed by architect Katherine Signell of Moskow Linn Architects and built by Jonathan Kantar of Sage Builders, the house’s orderly facade suggests a traditional Georgian. Inside, though, the design is contemporary, the front door opening onto an airy two-story atrium, leading to white-walled rooms finished with natural materials, delicate glassy lights, and the occasional, as Signell puts it, “monolithic piece,” like the sculptural kitchen island, which is clad in black and gray soapstone.

High-Performance Design Creates an Energy-Efficient Home

The house was built on the foundation of a one-story ranch that previously occupied the site. The back of the house is a deliberate contrast to the symmetry of the front with a bumped-out glass-encased room, which required a new foundation and replaced what had once been a screened-in porch. Here, the homeowners entertain around an eighteen-seat dining table fashioned out of a twenty-two-foot slab of wood from a white oak felled by Hurricane Sandy.

All of the glass windows and doors are made of quadruple-paned glass. “It’s as energy efficient as most people’s solid walls and perhaps even better,” says Kantar. Thanks to additional insulation, tight design, heat pumps, and a heat pump water heater, the rooftop solar panels meet the home’s energy needs…and even charge the two EVs in the garage. All of which makes for an abode that is an aesthetic, functional, and philosophical match for the homeowners who want, as Kantar puts it, to “create a planet that will be healthy for everybody.”

Project Team
Architecture: Moskow Linn Architects(opens in new tab)
Builder: Sage Builders(opens in new tab)