A Prefab Passive House Takes Root in the Catskills

Woodstock, New York, has beguiled artists, free spirits, and Manhattan-fleeing professionals for more than a century. Adrian Bueno and Yvette Leeper-Bueno joined the ranks of the enchanted the first time they visited more than 20 years ago. At the time, day trips and the occasional vacation rental were all the then newlyweds could afford, but they continued dreaming about having a more permanent stake in this corner of the Catskill Mountains region. So when the couple saw a stunning six-acre site for sale in Saugerties on a spring day in 2012, they made an offer on the spot.

In the intervening years, Adrian and Yvette had also assembled something of a design squad. In 2005, Jonathan Knowles and Laura Briggs of BriggsKnowles A+D created a primary residence for them in Harlem, and interior designer Jonsara Ruth worked with Yvette on her nearby restaurant, Vinatería, which opened in 2013. Shortly after receiving news about the pending land purchase, they all hustled upstate for reconnaissance.

The property abuts Sloan Gorge Preserve, an almost entirely hidden, 88-acre canyon at the base of the Catskills’ Overlook Mountain that includes swaths of pines, various oaks, and mountain laurel, interspersed dramatically with ledges of bluestone. "I pictured building a house on this huge rock," Adrian says of a large outcropping on the site. "I imagined a sailboat in the middle of the forest."