How They Pulled It Off: Preserving a Home Made From Reclaimed Greenhouse Windows

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality. 

In the 1970s, a homesteader in Southern Indiana built a home using salvaged pieces of greenhouse glass rescued from a decommissioned commercial greenhouse in Terre Haute, Indiana. From this material, he constructed a house located on a rural plot of land tucked away in a hidden valley of Bloomington. He built the home’s south-facing exterior at a dramatic 18:12 pitch to harvest the southern sun, bringing in plenty of sunlight for a section of the home dedicated to tropical plants and naturally warming the rest of the space. 

However, the house had its problems—it was sweltering in the summer months because the greenhouse section of the house wasn’t sealed properly. Cool air from the A/C would escape outside, and during Midwest summer thunderstorms, the owner discovered that the glass wasn’t watertight. Rain would seep around the greenhouse glass, which had been laid one on top of the other, like shingles, and sealed with caulking. Over the years, the greenhouse materials fell into disrepair. Glass panels broke. Some of the wood exposed to rain rotted, further worsening the house’s climate-control issues.

When the original owner died, and his daughters took on the house and wanted to remodel it, they knew they had plenty of work in store. Above all, they wanted to retain a portion of the 50-year-old greenhouse system that their father had built with his own hands, so they reached out to local builders with expertise in rehabbing challenging home projects. Their builder Loren Wood suggested transforming the greenhouse section into a new office space within the home. "The family didn’t need that much greenhouse space," says Wood, "So, we bumped much of the living space out into what had been the greenhouse section. We brought that into the building envelope."

Project designers Alex Minor and Russ Herndon had 14 deluxe fixed and operable skylights custom made and configured to replace where the greenhouse panels had been, replicating that same feel of the greenhouse. These skylights use every control feature available, from Low-E and reflective coatings on the glass to solar-activated controlled internal operable shades to make the space’s heat retention more manageable and livable. "So, the family wouldn’t have to worry about cooking in the summer heat," says Wood.

The remaining greenhouse glass section was refurbished with new glass pieces, and the team reused some of the original hardware, bringing it into the building envelope as well. New insulation was added to fix the climate-control issues. Lead carpenter and site manager Jacob Hyer used some of the best wood that could not be salvaged and turned them into picture frames as a gift to the new owners, to help preserve some of their father’s handiwork.

How they pulled it off: Updating the greenhouse windows 

• When Loren Wood Builders came in, their goal was to honor the materiality of the home. Instead of tearing everything out the team wanted to save as much as possible, rehabbing, refurbishing, and refreshing the finishes to update the structure. The team refurbished and reused some of the original wood and hardware from the greenhouse. (What couldn’t be saved was discarded or turned into picture frames that hang throughout the house.) They also kept the original pine floors and where they had to put in new floors, found wood that matched the graining and color of the original.

• The portions of the greenhouse section of the home that they could not salvage were made with new glass. The team created the 100-square-foot skylight section and fit it into a Douglas fir beam grid they had prebuilt and assembled in the Loren Wood Builder workshop. They then set these skylights into the large, prepared south-facing wall.

• These skylights incorporate several other climate-control features, such as Low-E and reflective coatings to prevent harsh sunlight baking the structure on hot days, along with solar-activated controlled internal operable shades to help block the sun entirely if needed.

• The team also raised and enlarged existing windows, cleaned up the original post and beam structure, and installed a custom kitchenette. Jacob Hyer also built a custom dining table for the space to add more functionality.

For the new homeowners, the house contains a rich personal history. And they see themselves as the new stewards of the home. "To them, rehabbing the house was as much as remodeling a piece of art—only it was art that their dad had crafted with his hands before he passed," says Wood. Saving the home was like retaining a piece of him.

Project Credits:

Builder: Loren Wood Builders

Project Designers: Alex Minor and Russ Herndon

Lead Carpenter and Site Manager: Jacob Hyer

Related Reading:

How They Pulled It Off: Making a Midcentury Home Sustainable for the Next Century 

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