Down to earth couple dig deep for dream home

Tommy Barker visits the Peterse family and their unique eco-friendly house in West Cork.

DUTCH couple Ineke and Theo Peterse ‘did’ the West Cork farmhouse conversion thing a quarter of a century ago. Two years ago, they sold the farmhouse, An Cleite Ban, and decided to dig deep for their next Irish house adventure - they went underground.

Well, not quite so much underground, more earth-sheltered, positioning their new home in a choice part of the 31 acres of land they retained near Bantry where they have run a small organic farm for a number of years .

They picked a spot just south of a two and half acres plot of former grassland, which they had planted some 20 years ago with a variety of trees, mainly hardwood, and shrubs, and cut and dug their 1,000 sq ft earth-mounted home into it.

“It is now a haven for wildlife, and it has since officially been declared a conservation area,” says Theo, a retired journalist and photographer turned farmer, approvingly talking about the lure it provides to insects and wildlife.

Ineke even planted a gunnera plant on the roof, more commonly known as ‘giant rhubarbs’ - the attractions of which would surely be anathema to most house holders who’d clear out their roof gutters at the hint of a weed or a clump of grass.

He and Ineke, a physiotherapist, had an eco-ideal for their building adventure, that the house had to blend into the countryside and be low energy in its demands.

With its green roof (green in more ways than one) now planted also with shrubs and grasses, it does indeed disappear into the ground where it is sited: the only visible clue is the circumference of conservatory to the front which draws in heat and light, and even this large glassed area was finished with non-reflective glass so as to minimise its visibility in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

“In doing so we also created an atmosphere inside where climatic extremes and UV light are non-existent because the roof provides excellent insulation,” says Theo, who notes that their energy consumption has been cut to a quarter of their former farmhouse’s heating bills by their voluntary move under the sod (electrical lights also work off motion sensors to save energy when roms are empty).

The genesis of its design came about as a fruit of nature’s local bounty. The couple make their own wine from the abundance of berries and fruits, and it was after a night of intensive sampling that the novel design emerged.

“Do you know those small square sticky coloured notepads (post-its)?” asks Theo. “Well, one night we opened some wine; we had quite a bit of it, and when we got up in the morning, all this paperwork was stuck to the table, with the house designed on them,” he says of this ‘in vino veritas’ house design process.

The house makes sober sense too, with its bedrooms and storage area cleverly tucked away to the rear where there are no windows at all; keeping all decor white, with pale varnished pine beams supporting the gently vaulted ceilings keeps it surprisingly bright looking within, however and the main living area and kitchen with beautiful elm units is flooded with light thanks to the fan-shaped expanse of conservatory.

It makes for a real artistic chiarascuro, an interplay of light and darkness, yet despite some expectation, there’s no suffocating sense at all of being underground.

The conservatory is the key to its brightness, with its steel-framed roof (the glass from Waters Glass is both tinted and toughened so strong you can walk from the house roof across it) and cedar window frames, while the stone floor acts as a heat store soaking up the smallest few calories of heat when the sun peeps out. When there’s no sun, a large central fireplace does the same task.

The back section of the house was dug down five feet into the ground, and it is roofed with mounded earth, clay and sand.

When all is quiet, you can actually hear animals outside the house through fresh air vents Theo installed in the bedrooms and shower roms (no bath, to save energy) and you can also hear the heavy varnished pine beams crack and creak as they dry out naturally in this even-humidity and stable temperature environment.

Other innovations are vents off the large open fireplace feeding warm air throughout the house, and black plastic tanks up on the roof to pre-warm water for heating when the sun shines; this warmed water is then held in insulated tanks in the house beneath, and used as part of the heating system and helps the heating system start from a higher base temperature saving costs.

While Theo did almost all of the building work himself - coming up to age 70 years, mind you - they had great input from friends and neighbours when heavy work was needed. Building suppliers Murphy O’Connor in Bantry were willing providers of knowledge and expertise, adds Theo.

The front of the house is faced with pressure treated sawn boards with bark still attached, and the roof has shuttering plywood on the beams, covered with polythene, next came 5” of poured concrete, then tar, then a foot of earth, a weed-screen membrane, next gravel, and then a planting scheme.

The finished house is a place they reckon they’ll never sell or leave: pushing up daisies there won’t bother them, they laugh.