Married architects Jennifer Mowery, AIA, and Brian Marsh, AIA, have a talent for translating Passive House principles into elegant homes that murmur rather than shout. While their intrinsic comfort comes from a set of prescribed building standards that result in quiet interiors with even temperatures, their scale and finishes are a noticeable part of their appeal. So is their openness to the outdoors, belying the conventional notion that Passive Houses have a signature inward aesthetic.
Brian honed his Passive House skills while working with well-known architect Dennis Wedlick, FAIA, years ago, and now the firm builds most of its houses to those standards. This project, in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, was designed for an older couple with no children. It’s considered their main residence, though they have a winter home in Florida and the husband spends several days each week in New York City for work. Outdoor enthusiasts—he loves hunting and fishing—they were drawn to this property overlooking a glacial lake. Even though it’s their primary home, they wanted it to feel like a retreat.
That was fitting for this nature- minded community, where new homes are not allowed to be visible from the lake. Brian and Jennifer finessed this in several ways. Situated on a slope that drops down to the water, Fern Hill replaces an old cabin that sat 4 feet below the driveway. “We wanted it to be nestled into the grade—friendly on the front but not too high up on the back,” Jennifer says. While the foyer steps down to the great room, the garage is level with the living areas, and the grade was brought up along the front façade. Organizationally, its three gables—the primary bedroom, great room, and den—are oriented east toward the water, aligning with view corridors that had already been cleared. The exterior’s native stone and dark cementitious siding all but disappear into the surrounding woods. Its massing and materials suggest a streamlined mountain lodge, and the texture-rich interiors strike a balance between intimate and open, relaxed and refined.
Inside Out
Inside, it functions day-to-day as a one-level house with generous outdoor openings. Just off the central kitchen/dining/living zone is the wife’s art studio and the primary suite. On the opposite side of the main living space, a bar/pantry, powder room, and laundry connect the kitchen to the garage entry, while a screened porch with a flat roof—an infill between the gables—faces the backyard. The wing behind the garage contains two en-suite guest rooms and a den. Upstairs are a loft, bath, and a bunk room for visitors with kids, while the L-shaped basement contains a gym, wine storage, and mechanicals.
For years, the couple had been coming to a rustic cabin they owned nearby. Here they were interested in combining the coziness of a hunting cabin with bright, airy spaces. “That’s why we have some deep, dark rooms, like the workshop attached to the garage, which is outside the Passive envelope,” Jennifer says. The den, furnished with plaid carpet, is painted a moody dark green. “What’s fun about dark spaces is that people don’t realize how much that helps you see outside,” she adds. “The window mullions and dark wall drop out of your vision, whereas in the white spaces you’re feeling the volume a bit more.” Each volume’s gable end has floor-to-ceiling window walls that open to the lakeside terrace. The porch, which shares a back-to-back fireplace with the great room, feels snug and protected, yet it, too, opens to the terrace through a folding window wall with motorized screens.
Reclaimed wood beams warm up the great room’s white oak cabinetry and light-reflective quartz countertops. The kitchen backsplash’s Calacatta marble pattern reminded the clients of pebbles in a riverbed. “We were gauging how the kitchen can feel like it fits the big volume but scaled to the user and having some charm,” Jennifer says. “We often package kitchens in the wall—no soffits or tops of cabinets. Here it has a clean inserted look, but the detailing isn’t slick; it feels suitable to the character of the rest of the house.” Floors are white oak in the main rooms, while the transition zones and porch are paved in large-format porcelain tile that has an inside-outside quality. In the powder room and the bunk room under the eaves, woodsy botanical wallpaper also references the natural setting.
Human Scale
Jennifer and Brian worked with a local mason to source and lay the exterior’s native stone. While they prefer the look of dry-laid stone, the mason used some mortar to assuage his concerns about water infiltration. He raked the joints in a way that gives it the texture of dry-laid stone. “A lot of stone in the area is very flat—we wanted to avoid it feeling like a terrace on a wall,” Jennifer says. “You have to sculpt it, almost, to get those parts and pieces to fit together.” The cementitious siding, made from fly ash, has a nickel gap, echoing the interior ceilings.
The architects followed the Passive House playbook for constructing the building envelope. Even before the design was finalized, energy modeling exercises guided the house’s physical orientation for ambient sunlight, and a newly planted tree between the primary bedroom and living room provides shade in the summer.
Fireplaces can complicate the Passive House equation. In the living room, a wood-burning fireplace insert has a glass guillotine door that seals the unit when it’s being used. This requires a make-up air system that compensates for the air being drawn into the fireplace from an airtight house. Sharing that same masonry chimney is a conventional wood-burning fireplace on the screened porch. A third fireplace in the den is a sealed-front gas unit with dedicated intake and exhaust. “The house doesn’t need this much heat, and it takes a lot of coordination to get that to work and be healthy, but we try to give people everything they want,” says Brian.
Construction was challenging for the builder, working on his first Passive House. “It was an interesting thing to learn and execute,” says Josh Anns, who runs Anns Construction with his father, George. “We constructed a whole other layer around the outside to house the extra insulation.” Its conventional 2×6 structural walls act as a utility chase, then thin TJIs were attached to Zip wall sheathing with a smart air barrier, which allowed for 12 inches of blow-in cellulose insulation in the walls and roof. The final siding layer was then installed over a rainscreen system. With this assembly, along with thermally broken, triple-glazed windows and robust air sealing membranes and tapes, the home meets Passive House standards, even though the homeowners did not seek certification. “The living room area is spectacular with all that glass,” adds George.
In drawing the scheme, the architects were careful to give even the most dramatic spaces a human proportion. To that end, the punched openings, while still quite large, sit within deep apertures created by the 20-inch-thick walls. “It creates a lot of shadow and sculpts the outside of the house,” Jennifer explains. “That’s what gives it the old-world feel. We are bridging that heavy construction with a lot of glass that has more modernist sensibilities.” Even the tub that sits against a big window in the primary bathroom is comfortable to use in the dead of winter, they say, given the consistent temperature of the circulating fresh air.
The clients have mentioned that living there feels like being on vacation, Jennifer says, which was always the goal. “A lot of people want a house where they’ll feel at peace and can live in for 20 years. It’s like a cocoon that feels very solid and permanent.”
“A lot of people want a house where they’ll feel at peace and can live in for 20 years. It’s like a cocoon that feels very solid and permanent.”
The kitchen’s white oak cabinetry fits cleanly into the great room walls, while exposed beams and hardware echo the home’s vernacular vibe.
The den’s moody walls and open ceiling evoke the feeling of a hunting lodge. Its dark green paint also helps the interiors disappear, drawing the eye outward to the stunning landscape.
The wife’s art studio sits just off a hall linking the great room and primary suite.
The primary suite is one of three gabled volumes directed toward existing view corridors to the lake.
Tucked under the eaves above the guest wing and den, a bunk room, bath, and lounge provide a getaway for visiting guests with children.
Attached to the garage, a workshop sits outside the Passive House envelope. Its utilitarian, yet pristine built-ins and dark walls update the hunting lodge concept.
Fern Hill Passive House
Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania
Architect: Jennifer Mowery Marsh and Brian Marsh, Mowery Marsh, Hoboken, New Jersey
Builder: Anns Construction, Greentown, Pennsylvania
Interior designer: Elaine Santos Design, New York, New York
Landscape architect: Square Acre Studio, Madison, New Jersey
Building scientist: Bldgtyp, Brooklyn, New York
Structural engineer: Proper & O’Leary Engineering, Troy, New York
Project size: 3,360 square feet, plus 750-square-foot garage/workshop
Site size: 1 acre
Photography: Mike Van Tassell
Key Products
Cabinetry: Master Design Cabinetry
Cabinetry hardware: Schoolhouse
Chimney shroud: American Chimney Shroud
Cladding: Boral TruExterior
Cooking vent hood: Sub-Zero
Cooktop and ovens: Dacor
Countertops: Caesarstone, Calacatta marble
Dishwasher: KitchenAid
Faucets: Waterstone, Restoration Hardware
Flooring: KD Woods white oak
Garage doors: Artisan Custom Doorworks
Home control systems: RTI
Home theater components: Sonance
HVAC: LG ducted mini-split
Housewrap: Solitex Mento wrap, Tescon Vana tape
Humidity Control: Santa Fe Compact
Icemaker: Cafe
Insulation: FOAMGLAS, Neopor GPS, Greenfiber cellulose
Lighting: Volt (exterior), Tech Lighting, Halo, Urban Electric, Rejuvenation, Lulu & Georgia, Cedar & Moss, Circa Lighting, Wo & We, Lostine, Roll & Hill
Lighting control systems: Lutron
Paints/stains/coatings: Benjamin Moore
Passage doors / door hardware: Emtek
Refrigerator: Sub-Zero
Roofing: Certainteed Landmark shingles
Security system: Luma
Sinks: Kohler, Duravit, Kohler Whitehaven
Thermal and moisture barriers: Intello Plus
Toilets: Duravit
Tub: Victoria & Albert
Ventilation system: Zehnder ERV, Electro Industries (make-up air)
Wallboard: Garden State Lumber T&G nickel gap
Washer/dryer: Whirlpool
Water filtration: Aquasana
Windows/Window wall systems: Ikon Windows & Doors
Wine refrigerator: Sub-Zero
