Cutting-edge cabin

True sustainable living starts at home. Tom Kelly's cabin near Oregon's Mt. Hood is all about family, the outdoors, and treading lightly on the land. "It was important that our getaway be as eco-friendly as possible," says Kelly, who owns a design/build and remodeling business on the forefront of green building practices.

Inspiration came from an article in the New York Times about a loftlike concrete-and-glass house on Idaho's Idaho’s lake country. "We liked its industrial simplicity, with all the concrete block and exposed electrical conduit," Kelly says. "But we didn't want to mimic a specific style. We just wanted a place that was comfortable and suited its rural setting."

Kelly and his wife, Barbara Woodford, gave the design task to their niece, architect Liz Olberding She organized the house around a hydronically heated concrete floor and structural walls made of Durisol, blocks of recycled wood fiber and cement that contain fiberglass-like rock-wool insulation.

Terra-cotta-colored clay-plaster accent walls, exposed wood trim, and wool rugs in a similar ruddy palette add a layer of warmth. The honed concrete-block walls retain heat from sunlight; as with many of the cabin's materials, the blocks are extremely durable and locally produced to lower the "embodied energy" of transportation costs. The home boasts so many innovative components, it was the first Western residence to receive LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), a rating system developed by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council.