Home, Green Home

A couple embraces eco-design by starting in the most obvious place possible: their existing home.

By Sally Stich

Photography by Brent Moss

The homeowner and her daughter both fell in love with this bedroom set, which the daughter requested for her room on the main level. Mom prevailed and her daughter “inherited” her parents’ old set of Baker bedroom.

Once a dark, oddly angled nightmare, the kitchen today is actually smaller but offers the same amount of cabinet space. Its new configuration has great flow and allows the original skylight to be perfectly centered. The true gem of this space is the 18-inch butcher block island, the perfect spot to enjoy morning coffee and newspaper reading.

Family heirlooms, the dining room table and chairs were re-stained (darker) and reupholstered with eco-friendly fabric. The mirror above the buffet reflects the beauty of nature just outside the living room, opposite the back wall.

Ask most people to define green design and they toss around phrases like sustainable, eco-friendly, organic, low VOC—words that relate to products and systems that have minimal environmental impact.

They're quite right, of course, but many forget the most basic elements of green design, so simple they're often not even mentioned: reuse and recycle. In a home, that means reusing the existing structure rather than razing and rebuilding. In the interior, it means recycling what works and reusing what you love rather than buying new.

That was the overriding philosophy in this Aspen remodel. The home is a 1970s tri-level in Aspen's West End. Built by an architect for himself, it was a home of many angles, aesthetically interesting but hardly conducive to good space usage and flow.

After living with someone else's design for 15 years, the homeowners, Brill and Betsy Key, decided it was time for some changes. Enter Sarah Broughton of Rowland + Broughton Architecture and Urban Design and Danielle Lake of McGuire + Lake Design. “The Keys' goal was a new kitchen, a home office for Betsy and a reworking of the space on the main level,” Lake says. In the end, they got much more.

The Keys did not initially talk about “green design” for their remodel, Broughton says, “but our firm is committed to showing only materials that are sustainable. Besides, in Aspen, in order to get a building permit, you have to meet a certain point system for the sustainability and energy efficiency of the materials.”

The major architectural problems were acute and uncomfortable angles in many of the rooms. Stripping the interior to its bones, Broughton straightened out interior walls where she could. The biggest difference: the kitchen, formerly dark and angled. Its new rectangular shape allowed Broughton to center the skylight (which was already there but off-center) and expand the master bath behind one of the newly aligned kitchen walls. Working with existing space throughout the house, Broughton and Lake created sensible rooms that not only look better, but also work more efficiently.

All existing windows stayed (another eco-friendly move), and only two were added: a vertical one in the newly opened stairwell between the main level and the upper level, and a horizontal window in the master bath, which brightens the room naturally.

Attracted to Asian-inspired design, Betsy wanted a palette that was serene and in harmony with nature, so the team painted the walls with Benjamin Moore China White, which has a hint of green. “I find that it works really well with most wood finishes and fabrics,” Broughton says, and in this case, it provides a great backdrop to the green-and-white reupholstered stools and the green mohair sofa by Georgetti. The fireplace is original to the house, but the family desk that was next to it is now a sleek storage unit with floating shelves.

The dining room, which abuts the living room, continues the serene theme with family heirlooms: the dining room table has been re-stained a darker shade, the white chairs reupholstered. The adjoining kitchen features a cork floor, ash cabinets and stainless appliances that were purchased to match the existing stainless stove. “This room works so much better than before,” Lake says. “It's efficient and beautiful. There's an economy of space but an expansive feel.”

The home makes an impressive statement about living in harmony with the environment. Clean-lined traditional furniture meets modern architecture; wool rugs, cork floors and wood furniture give the rooms a natural, comfortable feel. Add it all up, and you have re-envisioned space that's a testament to the best of green design: small footprint, big style.