Andrea Darr James Maidhof

Related Articles

299

• Food for Thought
• Ground Zeroscaping
• Building up the Tear-Down
• The New Gold Standard
• The Greenest House in the City

To look at Greg and Anne Rothers’ Parkville home, you’d have no idea that under its stucco exterior was none other than hundreds of bales of straw. In case you don’t believe it, as many people don’t, check out the “truth window” in their dining room.

“There’s a truth window in almost every straw bale house. It’s tradition, a lark in case someone doesn’t believe,” Greg explains.

Straw bale homes are more prevalent most notably in the Southwest, yet they are a viable building technique appropriate for almost any region. Though homesteaders in Nebraska were the first to think of straw bales as oversized bricks in a young America, similar methods have existed for centuries throughout Asia and Europe.

“Straw bale is basically insulation -- that’s the main reason people explore it. It has such a good R-value and it’s an environmentally friendly product because it can be harvested as a byproduct of grain production,” Greg says.

R-value is the resistance to heat flow, and the higher the number, the better the insulation. Total wall value for straw can nearly reach R-50.

Straw bales “stack up” in other ways, too: they are economical, allow the walls to breath, are biodegradable, durable over time and easy to maintain. And, as evinced by the Rothers’ home, straw bales can produce an aesthetically pleasing end product.

Greg wouldn’t call himself a tree-hugger for his use of straw over timber. He simply tries to be conscious of the impact that construction methods have on the environment both inside and outside the home. 

THE LAST STRAW Resource Book Architect/Builder: ROTHERS Design/Build Interior Designer: ROTHERS Design/Build Excavation: Chad Allen Excavating Foundations: Larry Swearingin Concrete Const. Framing: Marvin Matt Briden Lumber: Schutte Lumber Co. Interior Plaster/Stucco: Dynamic Design Stucco Straw Bale Insulation: ROTHERS Design/Build Insulated Roof Panels: Contour Products Roofing: Century Roofing Guttering: Williams Insulation & Gutters Painting: Rick Spencer Painting Co. Trim Work: ROTHERS Design/Build Windows: Pella Products of K.C. Kitchen Cabinets: ROTHERS Design/Build Countertops: Done Right Contracting Appliances: Factory Direct Appliance Hardware: Wilson Lighting Locks & Fans Kitchen/Bath Tiles: Done Right Contracting Flooring: Floorco, Inc. Glass & Mirrors: Fountain Glass Heating & Cooling: Myers Furnace Co. Plumbing: Dickson Plumbing & Construction Plumbing Fixtures: Dorfman Plumbing Supply Co. Electrician: Shinkle Electric Fireplace: Aliff Construction, Inc. Light Fixtures: Wilson Lighting Locks & Fans Garage System: Raynor Garage Doors Deck: Marvin Matt Briden

“I read an article in Fine Home Building magazine about houses built out of straw bales that immediately resonated with me. When I was a kid, we used to play in my grandfather’s barn and build forts with the straw bales. They were easy to stack and lightweight. It was a great building material for us as kids so when I saw that somebody had actually built a home out of it, it intrigued me and seemed like a natural choice,” Greg explains. “For a long time, I’ve been bothered by our modern approach to building. For instance, we come up with more and more ways to seal out the natural environment and we end up trapping poor quality air indoors and moisture inside our walls, so the idea of building a more simple and natural type of wall construction really appealed to me.
“Anne and I were lucky enough to be able to go out and see a house that was built in Manhattan (Kansas) and once my wife saw it, it calmed her fears that this straw bale house would look primitive and unsophisticated.”

Luckily, there is a growing amount of information available about straw bale construction, which Greg heavily researched. As the architect and builder, he elected to use a post and beam structure to which the straw bales are attached and then covered with expanded metal lath and finally a cement- and lime-based stucco.

“The lime content makes it more vapor permeable so that if water were to get inside the walls, it would more quickly dry out than if it were purely cement-based,” he says, adding that another type of stucco, made of acrylic, is absolutely not appropriate for this type of house. The synthetic stucco completely seals up the house, so if water gets in, it’s trapped. Water damage can result in problems ranging from mold and mildew to much more serious damage to the structure.

Inside, the house features more mainstream products and décor. The wood structure is made of Douglas Fir, as are the floors and ceilings, which are structurally planked. The kitchen, hearth room and dining room encompass one space, broken up only by the wooden structural grid, which requires posts every four feet, and a few steps that lead down to the family room. The centerpiece of this space is the stone fireplace, which is double-sided, the other side warming the master suite. Its real stone hearth is the first stair of the staircase, a well-planned and unique detail.

The master suite’s ceilings are vaulted with clerestory windows running along the top of the wall, flooding the room with natural light and views of the treetops. Separate closets halt several feet below the ceiling so as to not block out the light, plus they act as dividers between the bedroom and the bathroom.

The master bath, kitchen and family room feature hand-made, dyed cabinets built by Greg’s company’s cabinet shop. Anne and Greg spent hours mixing different dyes to get just the right colors for each room: purple in the master bathroom, blue-green in the kitchen, and shades of red in the family room and upstairs in their daughters’ bathroom.

Audrey, 9, and Alex, 6, share an open space for playing at the top of the stairs and each has her own bedroom. Their styles vary but each girl has her own armoire instead of a closet to make room for several windows.

Greg runs his architecture and construction business out of the “cozy” home office and shares the space with his real estate agent wife. A separate door to the outside is designed to welcome clients and associates without them entering the home. The adjacent dining room functions also as a conference room.

Another sitting room, which can double as a guest bedroom with its hide-a-bed, and a recreational room are located on the bottom floors. As if he hadn’t already included everything a house needs in 3,200 square feet, Greg included a craft room behind the kitchen for the girls, yet the room has another purpose for the future.

“If an elderly relative, or if in our own old age, we need a caregiver to move into the house, this could be their quarters. We don’t know if we’ll use it that way but we planned the room for that purpose,” Greg says.

He also designed the site to have the driveway, garage and main body of the house all on one level so they wouldn’t have to climb stairs in their own old age. “Basically, we plan to grow old and die here,” he says. 

If that turns out to be the case, their straw bale house should be there long afterwards. After all, some bale buildings in Nebraska still in use today were built around the turn of the century. Their last straw was the first indication that this method of construction is meant to last.