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Solar Beauty with Oriental Flair
By Sally Keeney – Advertising Staff Writer
The Herald-Sun – July 24, 1999
When you pull into the parking lot of the house at 1601 Halifax Road in Chapel Hill, you can thank stone mason Tom Benner of Custom Stone & Marble Company for laying the beautiful stone that sets off this unique berm house designed to fit into the landscape instead of sitting on it. You can also thank Frank for the crab orchard slate in the living room, foyer and atrium, but we’ll get to that later.
The house and grounds have an Oriental feel that grew from the hours of work the current home owners and designer Walker Hagans put into this marvelous solar home. The house has more than 4,000 square feet of living space tucked into its 12 (Yes, I mean twelve!) levels. Nine of those levels are below ground. Sounds pretty dark, but through enlightened (no pun intended) design, only the wine cellar and basement can be truly dark.
You can’t tell by looking at it from the front, but you can actually step up onto the roof in the back. That waterproof back wall supporting the roof is one of the things that is so unusual about this house. It is a 16-inch solid cement wall. A company from Minnesota was brought in to spray a mineral compound on the wall which renders it truly waterproof, not just moisture proof. This allows the good earth to provide insulation which makes using the home’s heating and air-conditioning systems pretty unnecessary, according to the current owners who lived there 14 years with their two sons who attended Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and UNC-Chapel Hill.
The wall is solid cement with a very thin layer of copper/aluminum and a Kalwall covering in front of that so that when the sun hits the wall, heat is radiated back into the room. The south-facing house, its windows and overhangs are positioned so that in summer when the sun is up high, not much light hits the back wall. In winter when the sun hangs low in the sky, its warming rays are radiated back into the home’s living spaces. "It costs no more to heat the house than it does to cut the lights on," owner Frank Penta said. "We found it a very comfortable house. I kept about 1,500 bottles of wine in the wine cellar where there is no active heating or cooling and never lost a bottle. Dirt is a great insulator."
There is 200 square feet of glass in the front of the house which throws light into all of the main living areas -- living room, dining room, atrium and kitchen. Clearstory-type windows and skylights add even more light. The ceilings in the living and family room area are 25 feet high. This is an open floor plan in more ways than one.
Sit in the loft where you can read, but still feel part of the action going on in the family room. Cook in the kitchen and still be part of family room activity because of the glass and hanging cabinets between the two rooms.
About those beautiful wood cabinets let me say just two words -- strength and quality construction. The ceiling of the home is held up by three 42-foot steel I-beams. The kitchen shelf is suspended from an 800-pound steel pole that goes all the way down into the basement. That whole kitchen shelving unit is suspended from one of those I-beams. Steven Brouillard built the house. The moldings are all fir. The walls that are not Kalwall are plastered, not sheet rocked.
And the open floor plan doesn’t mean there aren’t private spaces. Close yourself off in the library while the kids are enjoying their common playroom. The master bedroom suite with its tiled shower tub and walk-in closet is at one end of the house while the kids’ bedrooms are at the other end.
The atrium at the front of the house is a working greenhouse complete with a floor drain that allows you to hose down the area after you’ve finished your work. The laminated bridge that greets visitors at the foyer overlooks a fountain that flows into an indoor fish pond in the atrium below.
This house, built in 1985, was so well designed that like a Frank Lloyd Wright structure, its beauty and style will be appreciated for years to come. Its location off Estes Drive, half-way between the Chapel Hill Public Library and Estes Hills Elementary School, will make it a joy to live in because you are also within walking distance to University Mall, the Community Center and Greenway Trail, not to mention all of those doctors’ offices on Connor Drive.
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