Keeping the Circle Small
A Sandisfield Family Strives for Sustainability
By Hannah Van Sickle // Photographs by Peter Baiamonte & Ethan Drinker
Living in Sandisfield goes hand-in-hand with keeping one’s circle small. Neighbors are spread sparsely across its 53 square miles—the largest by land area of any Berkshire town, and eighth largest in the state—where privacy borders on isolation. Residing here full-time as I have for the past 17 years is a commitment often synonymous with an intentional way of life—one Alex Bowman and Jess Cofrin embraced three years ago when they first viewed the scant 14 acres they now call home.
“It felt a little different, unique,” Bowman recalls when they walked the property. The 1970s log cabin kit on a largely wooded lot needed little work to be a weekend getaway but harnessed tons of potential once they decided to relocate their young family from Brooklyn. What ensued was a reimagining of the space while keeping to the structure’s original footprint (save for the addition of a screen porch at the rear of the home) that has facilitated the family’s growing self-sufficiency, particularly in the wake of COVID-19.
“We didn’t want to be wasteful,” says Cofrin. She and her husband had a shared vision: to claim the south-facing screen porch, their favorite part of the home, and invite the outdoors into the existing 1,050-square-foot living space. The couple enlisted Jesse Selman, of Amherst- based Coldham & Hartman Architects, to turn their vision into reality—to build within the bounds of the original structure and to go green.
His first suggestion was to create a wall of windows where the old porch once was, and to fully engage the expansive view indoors. Selman envisioned a series of structural wood frames along the southern façade to create the glass wall and a new screen porch. Departing slightly from the traditional arrangement of the cabin truss, he created a varied pattern of vertical and diagonal elements as a continuation of the adjacent tree line.
“Mimicking the tree’s form also replicates its function, a vertical cantilever made perfectly to resist the wind and snow and all the weather New England has to offer,” Selman explains. This created a central place to focus on two goals: enhancing the quality of life and reducing carbon. “These two questions—playing off one another, and sometimes in conflict—can work beautifully together to form a lasting solution.”
Other improvements included capturing existing porch spaces to create a large mudroom at the primary entrance and a third bed- room. A new 16-by-24-foot screen porch—whose roof was designed to house the home’s 8kW, 24-panel solar array—added 312 square feet of protected, bug-free space that stays shady in summer and becomes sunny in the fall.
Sustainability fueled the next series of decisions for Cofrin and Bowman. The couple knew the term net zero—effectively producing more energy than they consume—but were unsure how to achieve that. They began by swapping the oil boiler for an air-source heat pump that harnesses heat from the air and pushes it into the house; below freezing temperatures call for supplemental heat from a wood stove, which burns a scant half-cord of wood each winter. Come summer, the air-source heat pump runs in reverse to provide air conditioning and a hybrid water heater uses a similar heat pump to draw warmth from the surrounding area into its evaporator coil. Triple-insulated glass keeps the house cool in summer and creates passive gain in the winter when the sun dips lower in the sky. The homeowners have not paid an electric bill since the project was completed.
While Bowman gravitates toward the woods, Cofrin has taken to gardening. Neighbor Bill Riiska, of Riiska Brook Orchard, pitched in to help the couple turn over a portion of their dense meadow into arable land. The original plot was 30-by-40 feet; Cofrin has since expanded an additional 40 feet to provide ample space for winter squash, onions, and a trio of carrot varieties.
Fueled by the goal of self-sufficiency, Cofrin stores food in the newly insulated basement where the temperature hovers around 50 degrees year round—until a legitimate root cellar can be built. Cofrin is now fascinated with canning and preserving food for the winter; the addition of pole beans, new this year, will be dried and shelled for later use.
The couple, who own one car, need not venture far to round out their consumable goods: They enjoy a CSA share at nearby Snow Farm and Tom Brazie, of The Farm New Marlborough, is the family’s source for pasture-raised meat, eggs, and High Lawn Farm milk.
“Since the pandemic, it has been hopeful to see how small farms are creating little farm stands,” Cofrin says, in a nod to nearby Mill River Farm and West Colebrook Farm just over the border in Connecticut. The family composts religiously and visits the town dump just once every three weeks.
At the end of the day, Bowman and Cofrin acknowledge their privilege.
“Not everyone can choose to live rurally,” says Cofrin, who has had to get over her FOMO (or fear of missing out) since leaving Brooklyn. Telecommuting makes it easy—Bowman has an e-commerce startup, Cofrin is an artist—and for the moment, their kids, ages five and three, are content to play outside, hunt for berries, and walk to the local orchard when they are not in school.
“There is value in being able to do these things for oneself,” says Cofrin, “and it’s easy in a community like Sandisfield.”