Living in a Keck house for the past fourteen years has been life-changing. It’s more than a house, it’s a perfectly designed system designed for elegant, efficient, everyday living. Thirteen large windows and four skylights bathe the whole house in light, even on the dreariest days. Using the principles of passive solar design, the window placement and pane thickness carefully account for the direction and amount of sunlight throughout the year. The double-sided thermal mass fireplace collects solar energy during the day and releases it as a free heat-source at night. The Keck’s proprietary innovation of louvered screens contained within cabinet doors adjacent to each large window, provide passive cooling, allowing for natural ventilation, temperature regulation, and security. They’re like lungs, allowing the house to breathe, even during heavy rainstorms.

Innovations like the louvered panels are a direct response to another more well-known architect - Mies van der Rohe. I once considered his Farnsworth House to be the most perfectly designed house I could possibly imagine, until I toured it and learned about the lack of storage, and issues with temperature and humidity buildup. The large walls of glass were stunning, but there was no way to regulate the passive solar heat and the windows didn’t seem quite as magical when they got all fogged up from trapped humidity.