Sun shines on Unity House

By Ethan Andrews
The Republican Journal Reporter

UNITY (Jan 15): On a crisp January morning, the normally eye-catching array of solar panels on the roof of Unity House was hidden under a thin blanket of snow. The covering had squelched the power output of the panels to about one-tenth of their 3500 watt-per-hour capacity — a problem that the home's tenant and Unity College President, Mitchell Thomashow, said would need to be worked out.

But then the inside temperature was 67 degrees and, according to Thomashow, the backup heating system hadn't been turned on yet that day.

Unity House, in profile (Photo by Heath Mathieson)

The president had just returned to the prototype home from a badminton game and had the place to himself, save for his dog Paco, who had found a patch of sunlight on the living room carpet.

"This is the biggest house I've ever lived in," Thomashow said of the 1,937-square-foot home. "I've lived in hippie houses in the woods for the most part. This is really stunning."

Unity College President Mitchell Thomashow with an air filtering system in the mechanical room of Unity House. (Photo by Ethan Andrews)

Thomashow had been Unity College president for two years when he invited longtime friend and builder Tedd Benson to construct a showpiece for "America's Environmental College." As part of a collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Benson came up with Unity House, a home that would, in theory, produce more energy than it consumes.

To date, it has.

For all the authority of the photovoltaic display on the roof, Unity House stays neutral in large part by eliminating the need for powered heating and cooling devices.

The house is heavily insulated. The acid-stained cement floor of the living room absorbs sunlight coming through a wall of south-facing windows and radiates it throughout the house after the sun goes down. If all goes according to plan, a simple trellis running the length of the house will be covered with vines in the summer, providing natural shade when the house needs it.

The president and the author check the warmth coming in from the south-facing windows of the living room. (Photo by Heath Mathieson)

On this day, sunlight poured into the room unabated. At noon, the air by the window was warm but the floor was still slightly cool under stocking feet.

The roof of Unity House is designed to accommodate a roof garden behind the pitched slab of solar panels, but Thomashow said it was too expensive to include in the original construction. Minus a bed of soil, the flat roof has collected snow and the occasional ice dam, causing minor leaks on several occasions. But, like the snow on the solar panels, Thomashow sees these as minor setbacks.

Since September, Cindy and Mitchell Thomashow have been blogging about their experience of Unity House, and the half-dozen entries show a wide-eyed awareness fitting of life in an experimental home.

The couple have approached the details of the project with an almost obsessive transparency, giving unsolicited reports on how the house was funded, where the furniture and appliances were purchased, which things belong to the family and which belong to the college, and whether the house is meeting its stated goal of "net zero" energy consumption.

The kitchen of Unity House (Photo by Heath Mathieson)

Thomashow says it's part of his philosophy of not only preaching sustainability but trying to set an example.

Beyond serving as the president’s home, Unity House was designed to accommodate various college functions. In early December, a group of 55 squeezed into the living room as part of a conference on "The Art of Stewardship." The Thomashows have hosted classes, dinners and — with some regularity — strangers drawn to the house by the array of solar cells on the roof.

As the most public room of the house, the living room is kept relatively spare. Dining room furniture and couches made of local hardwoods by Green Designs of Portland were bought as an investment that will remain with the house after the Thomashows leave. The space reveals little about its occupants.

Exposed beams and ductwork, and a sliding panel wall in the living room (Photo by Heath Mathieson)

The Thomashows' dog Paco finds a warm spot amid living and dining room furniture by Green Designs of Portland. (Photo by Heath Mathieson)

On the other side of a set of sliding doors from the living room, it’s a different story.

In the small adjacent room a tall bookcase is crammed with board games and various personal effects abound, but the bulk of the room is occupied by a home music studio, including a trio of synthesizers, a formidable-looking microphone and a computer flanked by monitor speakers. A pair of guitars leaned against the corner formed by the wall and the desk.

For most of his life, Thomashow said, he had only guitars. The rest of it amounts to recent purchases he wouldn't have been able to afford before he was president of a college, he said.

Sitting in front of one of the keyboards, Thomashow demonstrated the sounds: grand piano, Fender Rhodes, clavinet, Wurlitzer, Mellotron, and hints of a thousand others. On another keyboard, he activated a setting called "Asian DJ", which momentarily transformed the playroom of Unity House into an urban club, after hours. The sound was booming.

"This doesn't use much power," he said, turning off the equipment. "At first I was worried, but it doesn't make a dent."

Unity House was the first of its kind to be built by Bensonwood but it wasn’t a prototype in the usual sense of the word. Most of the materials used in the design are mass-produced. The component pieces of Unity House were cut by computer-aided milling equipment based on 3-D computer renderings, all of which could be done again at a moment's notice.

Unity House at night (Image courtesy of Unity College)

As Bensonwood architect Randall Walter told Village NetMedia in June, it was simply a matter of finding someone who wanted to buy one.

The Thomashows had barely moved in when Bensonwood unveiled a line of four "Unity" homes based on the president's quarters, all advertised under the slogan “energy independence."

Of the four models, option two is identical to the president's house. The other three versions shift, double and eliminate pieces of the original design to make an efficiency, a duplex and a expandable version of the prototype.

Inquiries about the Unity homes have averaged several per week according to Greg Boiles of Bensonwood but the company has yet to construct a second Unity House. A replica of the home at Unity College would cost around $600,000, Boiles said. A basic version, without solar panels and some other amenities would run $400,000.

Snow covers the extensive landscaping and pond that surround Unity House. (Photo by Heath Mathieson)

The president's house, which cost Unity around $450,000, not including landscaping, is the first major project in a 15-year master plan that would eventually replace every building on campus.

"I would like it to be a kind of open lab for green builders," Thomashow said, "but that's all about investment and finance, and it's a tough economy right now."

Looking out of the living room windows of Unity House, the landscape was all ice and snow. The temperature outside was in the teens and the forecast predicted subzero temperatures by the end of the week. Inside, the cement floor of the living room was starting to feel warm. Paco had found a new slice of sunshine, this one a little closer to the window.