Featured Homes
Green Acres
How one couple’s dream transformed into an eco-friendly home on the range.
BY
Kimberly Stern
PHOTOGRAPHY
James Maidhof

Perhaps it was the powerful inspiration of living on land where Yvonne Ward grew up driving a tractor and milking cows that fueled her dream home. Or maybe it was the romance of transporting a bit of rustic Colorado mountain design to the Kansas plains that spurred her imagination. Whatever the catalyst, she embraced the notion of building a custom, traditional post-and-beam home outside DeSoto on a verdant parcel of 20 acres of land where her grandparents’ original farmhouse still stands.

But the home that Yvonne and her husband, Scott — both retired  Air Force personnel relocating back to Kansas City after years in the western United States — moved into last January bears little resemblance to the ideas she originally incubated. 

“We needed to come back to care for my aging grandparents and had plans drawn to our specifications by a Kansas City architect,” Yvonne recalls. “When we flew here from Colorado to meet with him, he told us the house we wanted wasn’t within our budget parameters.”

So the architect introduced the crestfallen couple to Chris Segale of Segale Construction. They clicked immediately and hired him.  Yvonne and Chris met once before she traveled back to Colorado; he planted a seed to build an eco-friendly house with Colorado flavor and Yvonne’s one demand: energy-efficient windows.

Chris’ building vision had familial roots, too. Spending summers in rural Ireland with relatives as a youth, he witnessed the locals recycling and repurposing everything and nurtured a realization that waste wasn’t acceptable. 

“Houses were heated entirely by fire, and homes there weren’t all about square footage — they were about practical, usable space,” he explains.

Chris knew one day he would build just as smartly. “I wanted to build a home that would minimize its impact on the environment both during the construction process and throughout its lifetime and would be low-maintenance for the owners,” he says.  

The long-distance collaboration began after he broke ground on the property — not far from the sagging farmhouse — in August 2007. The team talked daily, with Chris passing ideas along to Yvonne who in turn did intensive Internet research on everything from structural insulated panels (SIPs) to low-VOC paints to Energy Star-rated appliances. She e-mailed him pictures of distinctive accessories and furnishings by Colorado artisans that she and Scott collected during weekend trips to small mountain towns to illustrate her definition of a Colorado-influenced home.

Yvonne admits that Chris’ enthusiasm was infectious and that a green lifestyle appealed to her. “Scott had turned over the building and planning process to me, so Chris and I became joined at the hip, and I got excited about things like foam-insulated panels and geothermal heat pumps,” she recalls.

Chris completed the 3,400-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home in December 2007 and the Wards were elated. “Yvonne and Scott came back to Kansas only once during the building process,” he says. “Everything that Yvonne and I had talked about came together.”

The home’s spacious and open main floor has dramatic vaulted ceilings with massive beams so the great room, kitchen and dining room function as one big public space. “I wanted to be able to be with my family no matter which room I was in,” Yvonne says.

To ensure the home’s compliance with Energy Star performance guidelines, Chris hired an independent company for energy analysis. “They audited the house for things like the thickness of insulation and windows and doors for air leaks,” he explains. “The home received a five-star HERS score.”

To achieve an energy-efficient structure, Chris used SIPs, a high-performance building system that not only creates a well-insulated   and air-tight building envelope but also helps maximize the performance of other systems like HVAC equipment. “The SIPs have pieces of foam sandwiched in between plywood. The foam ranges in thickness between four and 12 inches, making the panels a phenomenal insulator,” Chris explains.

Yvonne was concerned initially when Chris told her about SIPs and thought they might be cost-prohibitive. “While the SIPs were more expensive upfront, they’ve made up their cost in labor because they went up so quickly and in subsequent heating and cooling bills.”

The Wards’ highest energy bill was last January when both heat and electric totaled $150.  “I polled co-workers who had at least twice that. We can turn off the heat pump and the house would still be warm two days later,” Yvonne says.

Every interior and exterior light fixture has CFL bulbs and even the ceiling fans are Energy Star-rated. The upper level has hardwood floors; the lower level has recyclable carpet in the theater and exercise rooms. The low-VOC paint contributes to a healthy indoor environment, which was a critical component for the Wards since Scott has asthma. “We don’t have chemicals leaching out of the walls. That adds to our peace of mind,” Yvonne states.

The Wards miss the majesty of the Rocky Mountains but are thrilled with the outcome of their house on the Kansas plains named “Colette’s Legacy” after the granddaughter they’re raising. Yvonne continues to research other avenues of living a green lifestyle on the land she watched her grandparents tend for decades. Catching rainwater is one of them.

Ultimately, the home will come full circle in the family tree. “We’re going to leave it to my granddaughter, just like my grandparents did for us,” Yvonne says.

RESOURCES
Design & Build: Segale Construction
Excavation: Lakeview Excavating
Foundation: R&H Concrete
Framing: CKS Contractors
Lumber and Hardware: Owen Lumber
Windows: Kansas City Building Supply
Sheetrock: Preferred Drywall
Roofing: Segale Construction
Trim Work: AM Trim
Paint: PPG Industries/Pittsburgh Paint
Painter: Segale Construction
Cabinets and Countertops: Overland Cabinet Co.
Appliances: Direct Buy
Tile: Creative Expressions
Carpeting: Nebraska Furniture Mart
Heating & Cooling: Jim Guffey
Plumbing: Boyd Plumbing
Electrician: JW McDowell Electric
Fireplace: Kansas City Building Supply
Home Theater: Segale Construction
Hardscaping: Brungardt Excavating
Home Energy Audit: Performance Plus Home