Montauk woman builds her own green dream

As more and more East Enders are making steps to incorporate sustainability into their everyday lives, the general consensus about the concept of being environmentally-conscious has moved from vague thoughts of crunchy, granola types to those who are focused on individual responsibility and conservation.

“It doesn’t have to be a weird thing to be green,” said Jessica James, a woman who has put 10 years of planning and two years into the actual construction of her nearly finished sustainable timber-framed salt box “dream home” in Montauk.

Though not an architect, Ms. James designed and contracted the home herself. Her ability to become her own general contractor is a story in itself, as it required a sympathetic licensed professional, Oscar Vasquez, to be the contractor of record in order to facilitate a bank construction loan.

The relationship between Ms. James and Mr. Vasquez proved beneficial to both as she was able to get her house made to her specifications and he was interested in learning about timber framing and eager to begin offering green building options to his clients. The two, who also shared contacts with subcontractors and suppliers, are now personal friends.

So how did this young woman with little professional training in construction arrive at this consuming project? The singular effort came to be realized through a series of life lessons and professional experiences, according to Ms. James.

Her love of renovation and restoration began when her father’s corporate work brought the family to a rambling 16th century brick and timber house in Buckinghamshire, England, when Ms. James was 17. Named “Shakespeare House,” it was once a coaching house where the Bard had actually stayed.

“My parents and I restored the house,” she said, reporting that the structure lacked central heating and was in a state of great deterioration.

Ms. James said she attributes many of her life’s passions to her “magical” 10-year English experience, including organic gardening, animal husbandry, cooking, interior design and, of course, building restoration.

A designer by trade, Ms. James’s college education certainly came in handy in spending the 10 years honing the concept of the house. Even her involvement in a California restaurant and gourmet shop she used to own with her ex-husband helped her in the layout and design of some of the key parts of her home, especially the kitchen and pantry amenities, which include a functioning dumbwaiter.

One of the most time-consuming processes, and some of the more frustrating parts of getting her home built, was obtaining a Natural Resources Special Permit due to the property’s proximity to wetlands. East Hampton Town also required an archaeological survey. The entire process took five years.

As for the actual design of her home, which looks like a regular beach-type house from the outside, Ms. James said that although she likes modern architecture, she strongly desired bringing Montauk’s 18th century “vernacular” into her home. She decried the “boxy, cold” new green residences and instead was inspired by the Second House shingled saltbox, a post and beam house reflecting her former English home.

“It’s so satisfying to pull together all the strands of my life in building my home,” she said, adding that the house includes architectural salvage, furniture and furnishings from her family home as well as incorporating the timber frame construction invoking her life in England.

A visitor’s tour to view some of the green building principles incorporated in this structure—which sits on just shy of an acre—begins with the southern orientation of the 2,400-square-foot house. Though the footprint is small, the residence feels big inside with multipurpose rooms and the use of the natural slope of the property to maximize natural light.

The passive solar benefits of the home also include incorporating a screened-in sleeping porch, which buffers the house on the south side (soft plastic and canvas windows will be used in winter and on rainy days), well-insulated windows and structural insulated panels in the wall and roof construction. Solar photovoltaic roof panels for electrical generation have created payback from the Long Island Power Authority for the excess production of electricity to the tune of $200 last year.

In terms of site management, Ms. James didn’t allow Dumpsters on the site during most of the building. Instead, much of the debris was graded, recycled and reused.

An example of this type of recycling included using stones from the property to create a ramp on the west side of the house for ease in bringing in materials down to the “kiva-like” sunken patio and adjacent basement. Ms. James also repatriated some 100-year-old interior doors from her grandparents’ old New Jersey home and salvaged antique wood for the house flooring and a 3-inch-thick sliding plank front door.

The use of local and Northeast-based materials was of high priority to Ms. James. Those materials included: Eastern cedar siding shingles, live-edged white pine siding from Maine, stones excavated from the site for dry-stone walls and for the fireplace and a driftwood mantle in the large great room, which was found at Ditch Plain and dragged off the beach by friends.

For those that are really into sustainable cooling and heating principals, there are several surprises in store for a visitor who ventures to the basement.

Recycled blue jeans for insulation come to mind. And what looks like a piece of contemporary sculpture is actually a copper manifold which controls six zones of radiant heating. Additionally, there are two wells drilled on the property, requisite for the ground-source (geothermal) heat pump, which further offsets heating costs and provides virtually free air conditioning and dehumidification.

“I didn’t want to feed the fossil fuel industry,” Ms. James said of her decision to harness energy-efficiency.

Since she has frequent houseguests, Ms. James planned a somewhat unusual backup for entertaining by installing a basement dishwasher. To keep the main floor area free of dishes and clutter, Ms. James can just load up the kitchen dumbwaiter and send everything out of the way and to the basement.

“Easy care is the way I like to go,” she said of her unique idea to keep the kitchen free of mess.

Cooking and sharing the experience with friends is very much a pleasure for this former chef/restaurateur. Her small kitchen allows great light from her windows free of upper cabinets, thanks to the dumbwaiter use, and the informality of facing friends who sit on stools at the butcher-block counter as she cooks on her Viking Professional stove.

To free up even more space, there is a cleverly arranged butler’s pantry adjoining the kitchen. The glass door and recycled antique hardware-faced pantry provides a small fridge as well as cupboards and drawers holding drinks necessities. All the interior doors are also from the home of Ms. James’s grandparents.

The second floor of the house holds an open work area at the top of the stairs with placement of the skylights functioning as windows, also availing the area of maximal light. A guest room shares a bathroom with a multipurpose room which is to be used as both library and guest room. The open-air space looks out on the great room below.

As for the landscaping, always a naturalist at heart, Ms. James has surrounded herself with largely native plantings. And for the first time in many years, she has put in a small vegetable garden.

After investing a dozen years of her life to building her dream, what will this 
talented, energetic Renaissance 
woman do when the house is finally completed?

“I’ll start thinking about new outlets for my creative energies,” she said, adding that she’ll probably do some painting and writing as well as designing and fabricating jewelry and moving into furniture and housewares design. “And,” she said with a broad smile, “I look forward to mentoring other local homeowners about design and building green.”