Going Modular and Net Zero at Home in Vineyard Haven

If you drive down far enough on Franklin Street in Vineyard Haven, you’ll pass Ian Douglas and Kristin Harris’s gray, shingled home as you leave town. Their modest, two-story build is on the corner of Franklin and Clough Lane, next to Saint Augustine Church. The quarter-acre plot was an empty lot three years ago. The net zero home that stands there now embodies the many ways people can build sustainably on the Island. In constructing it, Ian and Kristin made a number of eco-friendly decisions — the first of which surprised even them: building modular. 

“We had no idea what modular was,” Ian says, standing in his sun-soaked kitchen.

“We weren’t going to build modular,” Kristin reiterates.

But sustainability was a top priority for Ian and Kristin, who are from the Boston area but have spent many summers at Kristin’s family home in Oak Bluffs, a passive (now active) solar home built in the 1980s. When Ian and Kristin decided to live on the Island full-time in their retirement, they wanted to be environmentally conscious about it. Once they learned that modular is less wasteful and less expensive than a traditional stick build, they were convinced. They chose to work with local builder Squash Meadow Construction, which has erected more than 100 modular homes on the Island over the last 20 years.

Looking at Ian and Kristin’s house, you wouldn’t know it’s modular. It has a simple exterior, cedar siding, plenty of windows, plus a detached carriage house, a porch, and stairs that lead up to an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU). That’s where their daughter, Johanna “Jo” Douglas (a full-time farmer of Fork to Pork and Leaf to Beef fame) lives year-round. Adding to the Island’s housing stock was another important box for Ian and Kristin to check.

“Knowing there’s a housing crisis on the Island, we felt passionately that if we were going to build a house for ourselves, we wanted to add housing stock for workers,” Ian says. “We were immediately thinking of Johanna, but we wanted it to be zoned in a variance such that if Johanna didn’t live there, then a nurse or a teacher or someone else would.”

Ian and Kristin custom-designed their home with help from Bill Potter of Squash Meadow Construction and designers at Westchester Modular Builders, who partner with Squash Meadow and build the modular homes in climate-controlled factories in upstate New York. That’s part of what makes the process greener: there’s no weather damage during construction, and builders computerize everything so every piece of wood that’s used is pre-measured and cut to its exact dimensions, leaving no wasted material. Modular homes are built in blocks, and it takes crews in Westchester about a week to construct them. Then, they ship the blocks via barge to the Island. 

“It arrives with everything in it. The windows, light fixtures, bathroom fixtures, shower, toilets,” Kristin says, adding that they selected all those items themselves. (“That’s what we did during COVID,” she says.)

Kristin and Ian’s house is made up of four blocks: two of them make up the downstairs, where Ian and Kristin live, and the other two comprise the upstairs, where Jo lives. They have photos on a laptop of the blocks arriving on Clough Lane on December 15, 2021.  

“See, it’s like sticks of butter,” Kristin says as she scrolls through images of a crane stacking the blocks on top of a foundation, and then on top of each other. 

It takes about a day for crews on the Island to build the house after it arrives. For Ian and Kristin, the blocks arrived at 7 a.m., and the house was complete by 3 p.m. Squash Meadow Construction then has an assembly line of local contractors on deck to plumb, paint, wire, and install the finishing details. The carriage house, porch, and staircase were stick-built later on. 

“I think Bill said from beginning to finish, there were about 200 people who touched the space,” Ian says. “And there were never more than six people on the property at a given time.” The couple moved in in May of 2022.

Ian and Kristin chose an open-concept, one-story 1,200 square-foot home where they can age in place. It has one bedroom, two bathrooms, and a 400-square-foot basement ensuite, where they host their other kids and grandkids. The 600 square-foot upstairs apartment includes one bedroom, one bath, and a porch with a staircase leading down to the driveway. Building a small home was another eco-driven decision. 

“It’s not a tiny home, but we wanted to have a small footprint and be sustainable that way,” Kristin says.

South Mountain installed solar panels on the roof, which is south-facing and pitched to maximize the sun’s efficiency. The panels provide electricity for all the lights, appliances, and electronics in the house, and power for their electric car. Heat pumps in the basement provide the home’s heating and cooling. 

Ian has an app on his phone that tracks their energy use. 

“Every year we make the same amount of energy that we use, so we’re net zero,” he says. “Last year, consumption was 10.8 megawatts for both units, and our production was 11 megawatts. So there it is.”

Solstice Gardens designed the small pollinator garden outside with light pink and purple blooms. Instead of a monoculture lawn, “whatever grows, grows,” Ian says.

“Vineyard Conservation Society talks about a Vineyard lawn, and that’s a high priority for us,” he says. “There’s no irrigation here. No fertilizer. We love clovers. We love dandelions. Sure, I cut it every week, but we have an electric lawn mower.”

Ian and Kristin also collect their food waste and give it to Jo to take to work to feed her pigs. They credit a lot of their commitment to sustainability to their daughter.

“Our kids have always led us, and while I think we were sensitive to the reality of climate change and environmental awareness, Johanna really invited us to take those steps,” Ian says. He checks with Kristin. “Is that fair to say?”

“It is,” she says. 

Ian and Kristin sell their excess energy to Eversource and receive tax credits and rebates in return. Asked whether they have any more goals for further offsetting their carbon footprint at home, Ian says: “Once batteries are up to speed, we could buy batteries, install them in the basement, cut the cord completely, and not have to use the grid as our battery. They buy from us, but if we can store that on site, then we wouldn’t have to do it through Eversource. But batteries aren’t there yet.” 

Until then, Ian and Kristin continue to live their best Vineyard lives. They get up at dawn. They swim together. They go to CrossFit. Kristin is a substitute nurse at the school, and Ian is a retired Episcopal bishop and professor. The Island has always felt like home to them, and now it really is. 

Kristin reflects on the moment she and Ian decided to make the year-round move, and the serendipity of finding the lot they live on.

“We were talking, and Ian said, ‘If anything ever happened to you, I would move to the Vineyard.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, if anything ever happened to you, I’d move to the Vineyard, too.’ And then we thought, ‘Why are we waiting for the other person to die to move to the Vineyard?’”

So they started looking at real estate in 2020. One August afternoon they were driving around, and Ian noticed the empty lot on Clough Lane. He pointed it out to Kristin. 

“Is it for sale?” she asked.

“No,” Ian said. 

“Why are you even pointing it out?” Kristin asked. “We need to be able to buy it.”  They both laugh thinking back to that moment, because about a month later, Jo was driving down Clough Lane and saw a handmade for sale sign on the corner. She sent a photo to her parents. She didn’t know the conversation they’d had in the car a month before.

“I said, ‘Kristin, this is that lot,’” Ian recalls. 

That was on a Monday, and by Friday, Ian and Kristin had bought the lot. The rest is history.

Click here for more information on Squash Meadow Construction and their modular homes.

Read more about the Douglas Family with Dining With The Douglas Family: Not Your Average Burger Night.