By Robyn Griggs Lawrence
Who leaves a house in glamorous Bel Air and a promising start in the movies for a house with a sod roof on the plains of Kansas?
Meet Jon O’Neal, a Harvard-trained physician, who recently earned an MFA in filmmaking screenwriting from UCLA. “All my friends in L.A. were saying, ‘What are you doing? Are you crazy?’ But none of them have been here to see this place yet. It’ll be a big challenge to get them out here, but once they’re here, they’ll get it.”
Undoubtedly. Jon’s 2,600-square-foot home, designed by Lawrence, Kansas, architect Dan Rockhill, is a blend of traditional and modern influenced by Nordic and Native American longhouses with sweeping views of prairie and sky. The house has a flexible, open floorplan; banks of twelve-foot-high windows taking in the southern sun; and sleek Ikea cabinets buffering the long north wall. A Kansas limestone exterior and native fescue grass on the roof provide insulation and blends the house into the landscape.
“The house kind of rises up from the grade,” Rockhill explains. “That’s actually something we spent a lot of time developing. We paid a little bit more to push the house down to the lower level and make it so it’s barely visible on approach. That’s part of the experience—you turn your back on the blacktop and the world behind it.”
The home’s union with the grassland is what Jon fell in love with “I can sit in my office, writing and overlooking these incredible plains, trees, and farmland,” says Jon, who has already penned three Kansas-based screenplays. “Yet I’m ten minutes from the filling station and the grocery store and forty-five minutes from Kansas City. You know, it took me fifteen minutes to get to a gas station from my house in L.A.”
Green Features
• North side of house is six feet below field, protected from bitter north winds.
• Continuous Low-E floor-to-ceiling windows on south side for glazing and solar gain
• Abundant natural light in every room
• Concrete floors hold solar heat by day and warm home at night.
• Cross-ventilation system takes in wind on low side of house and lets it out on high side.
• Calibrated windows and awnings provide shade and capture and funnel prevailing winds to naturally cool rooms.
• Whole-house fans assist cooling process.
• Six-inch walls provide insulation.
• North wall storage cabinets provides insulation and buffer from wind.
• Garage buffers harsh southwest wind.
• Attic space provides insulation.
• R-30 insulation blown into ceilings.
• Native landscaping is maintenance-free.
• Fescue grass on roof is maintenance-free and minimizes home's intrusion on landscape.
• Sod roof provides layering and insulative value, continues habitat, and releases oxygen and moisture into air.
• Radiant floor heat
• No exterior-interior walls; corridors along north and south sides provide buffer to keep living spaces away from cold walls.
• Limestone and corrugated siding are maintenance free.
Treading Lightly
While Jon found his dream home, Rockhill found his dream buyer. Rockhill’s firm had acquired fifteen acres of agricultural bottomland—an old homestead—in rural Douglas County. He parceled out about half of the property, then designed and built an ambitious spec house. Built for about $150 per square foot in material cost, the modernist house was a risk because it didn’t fit traditional expectations.
“We advertised for six weeks in the Topeka and Lawrence newspapers, and only one couple came out to look. It was discouraging.”
Then one day Jon visited Rockhill to talk about designing a home in Lawrence. Rockhill took him to the house in the country, and he was hooked. Jon bought the home for $385,000 and has never looked back. “For the cost of a mass-produced Tudor from hell in Lawrence or half the price of a 1,200-square-foot shack in L.A., I have this handcrafted piece of art,” he marvels.
For Rockhill, the significance goes even deeper. “As houses spread across the open plains of America—the agricultural lands that feed us—the habitats that support the diversity of life and the resources that fuel our modern lives are being consumed with a sense of impunity,” he says. “This sprawl seems inevitable, but the way these houses interact with the land can change. This design represents a three- bedroom house with large rooms and the expected amenities in a unique building that strives for beauty while treading lightly on its sensitive grassland site.”
Talking with the homeowner
What do you love most about this house?
JON: The placement on the landscape. You can’t see the highway—it’s about 300 yards from the main road. When you approach the house from the road, it just sort of emerges because of the sod roof. The north side, with its beautiful Kansas limestone, just appears as you drive down toward this prairie. It’s an exquisite site.
What’s your favorite room?
JON: Because I spend so much time in it, probably my study. Dan had originally designed two guest bedrooms in the center of the house. I kept all the doors off the second bedroom so the area’s open. From my desk I can look out at birds flying over this incredible view.
That’s not to say the master bedroom is bad. I have three walls of windows, and I can lie in bed during thunderstorms and see light from the north, east, and south. It’s just an awesome light show.
What would you do differently?
JON: I’m six -foot -five. I would have had the counters raised a couple of inches. Also, because the concrete floor was already poured, I couldn’t have a gas stove. It’s electric.
What advice would you offer new home builders?
JON: Choose an architect who’s brilliant and passionate but also practical and pragmatic. That’s what’s so great about Dan. He’s incredibly cost-effective, but he cares about teaching and designing houses specific to their locations. Dan’s houses are original works of art.
Provided by Natural Home - http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com
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