Almost three years ago, when George Kontaroudis and Meg Metzger, a Brooklyn couple, bought an 800-square-foot house on the Greek island of Skopelos, there was good news and bad news, and it wasn’t subtle.
Good news: The century-old house, which sat on the lush island where the 2008 movie “Mamma Mia” was filmed, was listed for a mere 41,000 euros (about $42,300).
Bad news: It had a mysterious boulder taking up much of the ground floor, and an ad hoc sheet of plywood instead of a front door. These inconveniences went far to explain why the property had languished on the market for almost a decade. (The couple ultimately paid 36,000 euros — about $37,120.)
Good news: Mr. Kontaroudis, 44, who grew up in Athens, spent his childhood summers on Skopelos, and the property was a short walk from where his parents still own a home. The couple could give their children, Thalia (now 6) and Artemis (now 2), the same halcyon experience as their father (minus the chance to try out as extras in “Mamma Mia,” an opportunity the 20-something Mr. Kontaroudis turned down without regret because “I was too cool,” he recalled).
Bad news: The location was on a lane that lacked automobile access. All renovation materials would have to be hauled uphill by a motorized wheelbarrow or a donkey. The donkey’s day rate was more than $200, so the couple opted for the wheelbarrow.
Good news: Mr. Kontaroudis is an architect who likes a challenge. He not only repaired the home’s glaring flaws but in doing so created the first certified passive house on Skopelos, an energy-efficient building that stands up to the Mediterranean’s increasingly vicious climate extremes.
First, of course, he had to figure out how to get in. Because of the hilly terrain, the main entrance was on the second floor, and it was originally reached by an external staircase rising from the front yard next door. This was not an inconvenience to the original owners of the adjacent properties, who were sisters. But the current neighbor wanted to deny the right of way to any future occupants. Before the house was put on the market, the seller dutifully encased the existing stair in concrete so that the entrance was no longer accessible and punched a rudimentary new door on the ground floor.
After sketching several possibilities, Mr. Kontaroudis opted to keep a ground-floor entrance directly below where the old front door had been.
Then he dealt with the boulder.
“It wasn’t exactly a boulder,” Ms. Metzger, 40, who is a ceramicist, clarified. A hundred years ago, when builders with their limited hand tools and transportation options (see donkeys) found a huge rock on a construction site, they tended not to remove it but to encase it in concrete and let it be. Turning a rock into a concrete block allowed the surrounding space to be used more efficiently.
The couple were resigned, like their predecessors, to cohabiting with the block and making the most of their upper two floors, which comprised less than 500 square feet. Then they learned during demolition that a large portion of the mass was friable sand, and all of it could go. The renovated home has a first-floor guest room, one and a half bathrooms and a third-floor primary bedroom, off which the girls share an alcove.
The founder of KWH architecture, in Brooklyn, Mr. Kontaroudis is a specialist in passive house construction, which seeks to provide optimal indoor air quality and comfortable temperatures. This is achieved, as he described it, through “good insulation, a leak-free building envelope, high quality windows and doors and a continuously operating mechanical ventilation system.”
Mr. Kontaroudis arranged for a group of builders from the mainland city of Thessaloniki to attend a training course in the technology. When it came time to begin construction, he put them up on the island.
“We rented them a villa, and it was like ‘The Real World,’” Ms. Metzger said. “Everybody had a great time.”
Under the supervision of a local contractor and with detailed drawings and all the necessary materials, the team completed the renovation in three and a half months at a cost of about $206,000.
As with many passive houses, the innovations were designed to be felt but not seen. The stucco that coats the walls as a primary barrier to air leaks is common in Greece. And though a second, thick stucco layer with bits of cork was an insulation novelty imported from Italy, its properties meant that the walls could remain authentically crooked. (Insulation placed within the walls, rather than applied to the surface, would have required the walls to be straightened, losing not only charm but also a considerable amount of space.)
The builders reclaimed whatever they could of the original materials, including pine flooring and casework and any chestnut roof beams that were not devoured by insects. The house also came with a trove of furnishings and artifacts, some of which the couple kept and supplemented with antiques from Athens, products from Ikea and Ms. Metzger’s handmade pendant lamps, sconces and sinks.
Last summer, the passive-house technology was put to the test when Greece endured a heat wave that resulted in the deaths of several tourists. The family managed with a single air-conditioner — “the smallest on the market,” Mr. Kontaroudis said.
A more quantitative story, he added, will be told by the sensors installed to measure energy use and air quality: “Within a couple of years, we’ll have a data set that demonstrates how this house has performed.”
For now, he has instructed the schoolteacher who rents the house in the non-summer months to feel free to make any adjustments for his comfort.
As of mid-December, when the weather on Skopelos is often chilly and rainy, he added, the heat had not been turned on.
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