Cozy in Carrabassett Valley: Pine-clad retreat a model for low-carbon living
Article by Lee Burnett
Photos by Josh Gerritsen
Mountain sports enthusiast Henry Heyburn of Brunswick loves to experience extreme weather in remote areas. But he also strives to travel light, for environmental reasons, which makes for an interesting tension.
Heyburn wrestled with the same challenge in building a new house in Carrabassett Valley. He wanted a mountain retreat for outdoor adventures that is also light on energy use. The result is a high-performance home that handles lashing mountain weather with snug comfort, and which is situated on the Sugarloaf bus shuttle.
“This really achieves a lot of what we set out to do,” says Heyburn, “to have a cozy place in the mountains where you can go be in the outside.”
Heyburn had been thinking about a mountain retreat for years and considered Idaho and Vermont. He and his daughter began looking in earnest six or seven years ago – focusing on the area between Kingfield and Stratton. “We found this almost by accident,” he says. “It’s on the west side, on a neighborhood street. It is really nice. It’s got great views.”
Guided by some building experience of his own, he was determined to set an example and “help mitigate” the carbon footprint of the ski industry. “The house does not use a lot of energy,” he says.
“I’m committed to winter sports and I’m committed to the New England ski industry,” says Heyburn, a former Bowdoin College ski coach and former Outward Bound mountaineering instructor. “If we want to have an industry, we have to do our part.”
For Heyburn, doing his part meant contracting with Belfast-based GO Logic, the design-build firm that makes ultra-efficient homes affordable by panelizing construction indoors. GO Logic delivered to the site the shell of a compact, 1,600-square-foot model, one of the firm’s most popular designs. Heyburn contracted with Backcountry Construction to finish construction, which included the custom detail of a breezeway and garage. The stud walls are filled with eight inches of loose cellulose insulation and covered with a six-inch panel of mineral wool. The triple-glazed windows are manufactured by Kneer Sudfenster of Germany. The house was oriented to maximize southern exposure with solar panels on the roof. While not Passivhaus certified, the Heyburn house meets the super-airtight efficiency standards of passivhaus design.
“That house gets the craziest of storms; it can be beautiful,” says builder Jon Boehmer. “But that house is so quiet, it’s like closing a vault door.”
To reduce the embodied carbon footprint of construction, Heyburn wanted to source as much of the wood locally as practical. “I believe in modeling what you want people to be,” he says. “I just feel it is important.”
All exterior siding is Eastern white pine from Hammond Lumber in Farmington. The garage was sided with vertically fastened six-inch pine boards with a ship-lap pattern edge. The house was sided with pine clapboards. The breezeway ceiling was covered by pine with a V-match, tongue-and-groove pattern edge.
Some builders are reluctant to use pine in exterior applications because of its supposed susceptibility to rot. But that susceptibility can be easily overcome, Boehmer says, by carefully treating the wood with paint or stain before and after installation. “We actually use pine a lot,” he says. “We have a lot of confidence in it if you treat it. That’s the key.”
Boehmer’s crew primes all siding surfaces before installation – front side, back side and cut edges. Once installed, caulked and sealed, the siding is painted or primed at least once again. It’s especially important to cover indentations from sunken nail heads. “Unless the nail head is perfectly flush, that’s an opportunity for moisture to get in.”
Here in Maine, pine is very affordable. “You have to seal it, which eats into cheapness,” Boehmer says, “but it’s a step we’re in complete control of.”
Another green feature of the property is that the car can stay in the garage: the house is directly on the route of the Sugarloaf shuttle, a free bus service to residential areas on the mountain that has been running for more than a decade.
As a mountaineer, Heyburn appreciates the house’s hillside setting and exposed breezeway.
“It’s a breezeway with a capital B,” he says. “I’m someone, who within reason, gets a great sense of energy and a feeling of being alive in harsh conditions.”
He gets a mix of feelings when he steps inside the snug, superinsulated house: a touch of pride in making a difference and a pang to do a little more. G&HM
This article appeared in the 2021 Green & Healthy Maine Winter Guide 2021. Subscribe today!