Brummetts Creek Remodel (Phase Two)

It’s wonderful to build a relationship with a client and with their home. Having the opportunity to do multiple phases of work over the years and touch many areas of the home is a special treat. This project was the second phase of such a project, you can see the first phase here.

For some backstory, In the mid-1970s there existed 33 acres under glass in the form of huge cypress and glass greenhouses near Terre Haute. Our client’s father, along with many other craftsmen and homesteaders, salvaged these components when the commercial greenhouses were decommissioned. From this material, our client’s father built an attached 18/12 pitch/angle to harvest the southern sun.

Last year our client again reached out to LWB to undertake a remodel of this space while retaining a portion of the now 50-year-old greenhouse system that her father had installed when he salvaged it back in the 70s. LWB designed a new office space within the greenhouse (opening the rest of the house to this wonderful south light) including re-building a position of the old cypress and glass greenhouse system on the west end of the roof structure. 

The design team challenge led by Alex Minor and Russ Herndon was to reach into the large greenhouse space with an office structure delivering the insulative and comforts of technology while controlling this huge heat gain potential. 

To this end, the team worked with our Velux skylight rep to consult in our design of an array of 14 fixed and operable skylights in the tightest nesting possible. These skylight units incorporated every control feature available from Low-E and reflective coatings on the glass to solar-activated controlled internal operable shades. 

The impressive resulting 100 square foot ft. skylight section, was fit into a Douglas fir beam grid – prebuilt/assembled in the LWQB shop and set into the large prepared south-facing opening, for this precise watertight feature. 

Other unique elements of this project include raising and enlarging existing windows, refinishing and integrating original fir floss, cleaning up the original post and beam structure, and installing a custom kitchenette. 

Jacob Hyer, from our team, also built a custom dining table for the space that has some neat extending functionality.

Photos by: Nolan Calisch