Few people could afford to. The tax assessor, who Doug said "didn't really know what to do with this place," finally guessed it was worth $380,000, three times what it cost to build ten years ago.
At the next stop on our morning tour, Jim Serdy pointed to the roof of a house which is completely covered in solar panels. "This started as an attic renovation, and sort of evolved."
Jim is a solar professional; he installs solar heating systems in houses. Jim spoke to us in the technical language of solar contracting. He spoke of structural attachment points, insulated thermal blinds, weather surfaces, triple glazed window systems, release temperature, mean-radiant temperature, stick-framing, R-factors, maintenance-free super-insulated maximum-efficiency collectors, and unstratified heat.
We went into the basement and saw a 2000-gallon water drum that Jim had made out of copper. Water heats in the solar panels up on the roof, and flows down to this thermal bank. An industrial computer listens to thermometers throughout the house and controls a pump which sends hot water to cool places. The water flows through a rubber tube under the strips of metal that Jim called "radiant." The water warms the radiant, and the radiant warms the room.
"It all seems sort of complicated. How hard is it to run this equipment," a woman in the group asked Jim. Jim said, "Well, it helps if you have an engineering degree or some technical background, but it isn't necessary by any means."
Someone else asked how much the system costs to operate.
Jim said, "Our data logging has not been vigorous." We weren't sure what he meant.
On the ride to our final stop, I asked Aaron if that solar system was saving the owners money or not. He said, "Well, the economics are tough. You have to really want to go solar. If all the parts were mass-produced it would be a lot cheaper, but Jim has to make all of that equipment custom."
"Lost Farm" is painted on the mailbox at Will Hapgood's place in Bolton, Mass. and if you aren't trying to reach his property you may well be lost. The road is not a main thoroughfare in town. When we parked and walked towards the house, a short, wizard-like figure dressed in blue jeans, hiking boots and a T-shirt hailed us from where he was working in the garage. "Y'all come in your Volkswagens?" he shouted. That was Will.
Will recently quit work and sold the rights to his artificial intelligence expert system called First Class. Now he is "unemployed," although one gathers that the proceeds from the sale are enough to support him. Nailing rafters in the garage, he looked as comfortable with a hammer as he probably does with a keyboard.
The house itself is an American mini-castle--half Aspen lodge, half Newport mansion. The solar heating in this house is a mere incidental, just one of Will's many idiosynchrosies. When Will had the house built a year ago, price was not an issue. Down stairs, there is one of those indoor swimming pools where you swim in one place and the water gets pumped by you. Sort of like walking on a treadmill, but more trendy.
Jim was with us again; he had done the solar work here as well. By this point I had had about enough lecturing on solar power for one day. There was the same copper tank in the basement and the same talk about thermal efficiency, floor radiant and sweat equity.
Will and his house were more interesting than the discussion of direct gain and thermal performance. The whole first floor of the house was one open living area, from bedroom to kitchen, and a fireplace rises from the center of the room. The fireplace and chimney are a twisting, trunk-like work of masonry, made of brick with veins of rocks cutting through. Picture an old gnarled oak tree, substitute brick and stone for the wood, and you have an idea what the fireplace looks like.
"We wanted to get an artist from Provincetown to do the job," Will said, "But the trip was too big for him and it didn't work out. So we got a local artisan to do it. It took him two weeks, and it would have taken the artist a year. Kind of makes you wonder about the meaning of art, doesn't it?"
A tower about 12 feet square stands one story higher than the house, and on the third floor there is a room bare of furniture, with windows on all four walls. What is the function of this place, I wondered. Will told me, "Oh, I go there to sit and think."
A 1966 graduate of Harvard, he seems to know how to live well. Now that he is unemployed, he will putter around the house while he works on his next project, which he speaks about guardedly. His wife is president of MassChoice, manages some businesses, and does some science writing on the side.
One of the group said. "I've passed by this place before, but you can't see it from the road."
Will replied, "That's the idea."