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House Feature

 A Minimalist Farmhouse in Santa Fe Goes "Deep Green" with Net-Zero with LEED 

By Camille LeFevre, Home Feature Editor
Last Updated: Feb 19, 2025

"I've always been an environmentalist," says Mark R Giorgetti, principal of Palo Santo Designs LLC, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A general contractor and business founder, he has a background in environmental science. After graduating from college, Giorgetti got involved with solar energy and sustainability initiatives.

In 2001, when he started Palo Santo, his design/build company, "our focus was sustainability. It's a central theme in our approach to everything we do regarding the built environment, where so much energy is consumed, waste is created, and water is used. Sustainability has always been our backdrop."

Table of Contents

  1. LEED: A User-Friendly Guideline
  2. Deep Green 1: Solar 
  3. Deep Green 2: Water 
  4. Deep Green 3: Construction 
  5. A Modern Farmhouse Aesthetic 
Santa Fe Kids Room
Photo Credit: Daniel Nadelbach Photography, LLC

When it came time to build a new home for himself, his wife Leslie, and their two children, Giorgetti and his team were ready to walk their talk. Constructing a new home "offered us the opportunity to express our architectural preferences and design aesthetic," he says, "and to layer in several deep-green aspects of homebuilding. We feel those deep-green aspects are powerful and attainable—not only for ourselves but also for average people looking to build a new home."

Santa Fe Guest Home
Santa Fe Guest Home. Photo Credit: Daniel Nadelbach Photography, LLC

LEED: A User-Friendly Guideline

Giorgetti and his team at Palo Santo followed LEED guidelines in the design and construction of the compound, which includes the family home and a guest house. "In my business, I've used LEED for more than a decade," he explains. "It has a knowledge base that's recognized internationally. The LEED point system is user friendly, even though it's become more complicated over time, which means the system is continuing to push sustainability forward."

Santa Fe Home Entrance
Santa Fe Home Entrance. Photo Credit: Daniel Nadelbach Photography, LLC

"We're currently in v4, the most recent and strict version of LEED for homes," he adds. "But, I'm familiar with it and have a clear understanding of what it takes to certify a home and how to do it." The house's Platinum level certification is pending. The family also enjoyed several sustainable building tax credits. "The State of New Mexico offers a nice return on sustainable investments through tax credits," he says.

Here are the three "deep green" aspects Girogetti and his team incorporated into the 4,000-square-foot home using LEED guidelines.

Santa Fe Property
Photo Credit: Daniel Nadelbach Photography, LLC

Deep Green 1: Solar 

The home's passive-solar design includes deep covered porches. The porches shade the interior from the hot summer sun while providing spectacular mountain views and a seamless indoor-outdoor living experience. Courtyard walls shelter the family's gardens and orchards while offering privacy to the detached guesthouse.

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Santa Fe Kitchen Sink
Photo Credit: Daniel Nadelbach Photography, LLC

Deep Green 2: Water 

In the Southwest, water—and the lack thereof—is a vast and growing concern. Giorgetti and his team designed a rainwater catchment system that directs 100 percent of any rainfall off the roof and into an underground cistern to address the need for efficient water use.

"We use the water for our drip-irrigation system," he says, which waters the landscaping, gardens, and fruit trees. The garden areas also provide a cool microclimate around the home. "We also recycle the water and bring it back into the home for flushing toilets," he says.

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Santa Fe Great Room
Santa Fe Home Great Room. Photo Credit: Daniel Nadelbach Photography, LLC

He adds that the Pumice-Crete method resembles the thick adobe walls common to the area's building vernacular. The walls include two inches of rigid insulation to reach R-25. The roof and ceilings are R-60 with blown-in formaldehyde-free fiberglass insulation within the wood-frame construction. The house is clad in stucco. The walls of the main living spaces are three-coat, hard-troweled gypsum plaster.

The ENERGY STAR-rated windows are by Sierra Pacific, double-pane, and wood with aluminum exteriors. The home also has in-floor radiant heat.

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Santa Fe Bedroom
Santa Fe Home Bedroom. Photo Credit: Daniel Nadelbach Photography, LLC

Large glass doors bring panoramic views of the Jemez, Sangre, Ortiz, and Sandia mountain ranges and every-changing cloudscapes into the great room, which has exposed timber trusses and an open floor plan aligned with the central fireplace. The home also has artisan finishes in stone, tile, steel, and wood throughout. The home, completed in the summer of 2020, has three bedrooms and three baths and a separate one-bedroom, one-bath guest house.

As for living in the home so far, Giorgetti wouldn't change a thing. Well, maybe one thing.

We could have gone all-electric from the start," he says. "I set things up so we could easily retrofit our gas boiler to be electric. Within the next five years, we'll do that.

Article By

Camille LeFevre

Camille LeFevre is an architecture and design writer based in the Twin Cities.

Camille LeFevre