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"Good Haus" Weaves Modern Design With High Performance in the Sierra Nevada Foothills
When Mela Breen and David Good moved from Colorado to the Sierra Nevada foothills of northern California where Breen had grown up, the timing was auspicious. The Great Recession (2007 to 2009) was full-blown, and finding a property they could afford was difficult. The couple eventually decided on a steep and rocky hillside with views down into a meadow about a mile from downtown Nevada City.
The site had a limited buildable footprint, seasonal drainage concerns (during rains, a stream literally runs through it), and a plethora of setback regulations. The site also had an "inviting" flat granite outcrop. "We bought it and sat on it for a decade, as we didn't have the funds to build," Breen says. Then, Fine Homebuilding came calling.
"They'd been following our work," says Breen, who is founder and principal designer of the architecture firm Atmosphere Design Build, which she owns with her husband, who is a builder and runs the construction end of the business. "They approached about whether we had any projects in the works that would highlight net-zero energy building, as California's building and energy code made a substantive change in 2020 to encourage net-zero new construction."
"I said, 'How about our house?' Even though the design was still in an early conceptual phase," Breen says.
Fine Homebuilding agreed as Atmosphere specializes in net-zero energy, low-carbon homes, and Good is a Certified Passive House consultant. "It was the nudge we needed," Breen says. "We jumped in." Their new net-zero energy, Passive House-inspired, high-performance, fire-resistant home became the 2018 FHB House. And it also exceeded the goals of the California 2020 initiative.
The home addresses the site's considerable constraints with a design that embraces the terrain—slope and stream, rocky ground, and granite slab—with singular ingenuity. At the same time, the 2,390-square-foot home celebrates and demonstrates the intersection of modern design and high performance. So much so that Breen and Good have named their home the "Good Haus" (a play on David's last name and Passivhaus).
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Floating Volumes
Breen came up with two intersecting geometric volumes that connect the building with the landscape to address the site constraints. The first-floor volume is a long, south-facing rectangle that reaches toward and anchors into the granite. A deep west-facing porch protects the house from the hot summer sun. The porch also bridges the stream and links the first level's open floor plan to the landscape with an ample outdoor living space that includes a massive fireplace encased in dramatic shou sugi ban (charred wood) siding.
The second-floor volume runs perpendicular to the main living space and cantilevers to create a covered north entry. The south side's balcony cantilevers towards the adjacent oak forest, so the master bedroom feels as though it's in a treehouse. To support the house, Good constructed the home on a steel pier and beam structure with a metal pan deck (like those used in the construction of parking garages), giving the house the appearance of floating in the landscape.
Inside the home, wood for the native black-oak kitchen cabinets came from Breen's father's property; he milled the wood himself. The kitchen island is clad in Northern California Claro walnut stockpiled by Breen's father after salvaging several large walnut trees. The wide plank white-oak flooring came from a small mill in Tennessee that has sustainable practices. "We don't use exotic woods unless they're salvaged, and we go as local as possible while being conscious around our material choices," Breen says.
Camille LeFevre
Camille LeFevre is an architecture and design writer based in the Twin Cities.
