A Prefab Passive House Takes Root in the Catskills
Assembled in just two weeks, the idyllic retreat near Woodstock, New York, realizes a couple’s dream of rural living.
Assembled in just two weeks, the idyllic retreat near Woodstock, New York, realizes a couple’s dream of rural living.
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.
Adrian Bueno and Yvette Leeper-Bueno sit on the simple platform porch that extends from the living room of their weekend retreat in Saugerties, New York.
Photo: Pippa Drummond
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 cedar-wrapped house, designed by BriggsKnowles A+D, is gently curved at the center. The windows are by Zola.
Photo: Pippa Drummond
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."
"The multilayered approach to this house—the use of healthy materials, the prefab, the relation to nature—has definitely changed our practice," says Briggs.
Photo: Pippa Drummond
See the full story on Dwell.com: A Prefab Passive House Takes Root in the Catskills
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