Amethyst Passive House

The family at Amethyst Passive House spends a lot of time indoors during Steamboat Spring’s mountain winters, so their home needed to create an indoor environment that could be fun and joyful. To achieve this, the home incorporates lots of glass—from floor to ceiling and wall to wall—connecting inhabitants with outdoor views and light when inside.

A giant LiftSlide unit, stretching 48 linear feet across the home’s facade, features elegant thin frames that maximize this inside/outside connection. A curtain wall in the master bedroom opens views to an adjacent knoll. The large ZNC™ windows’ triple glazing and extra insulation provide overall window performance of R-10, making Passive House performance possible for the generously-glazed home. In fact, the energy of just 2 or 3 hair dryers can heat the 4,500 square foot home, even on a frigid, minus 30 degree night. This physical warmth of the home is accentuated by the visual warmth of the windows’ interior wood frames, showing how Zola’s clad wood windows can help make modern design cozy.

Configurations at Amethyst Passive House include: