The Ashmead House

Chester County, USA

Single Houses

Architects: Duvall Decker

Year: 2020

Selah House, a small (2,247 SF) home for a soon-to-be-retired doctor, is designed with mature environmental strategies that, in its next life, will become part of a nature preserve. Great care was taken to locate the house in an existing clearing with a “light touch,” removing very few trees. Designed for a long 100-year life, all decisions regarding design, material, and systems were optimized for an environmentally engaged home. The program is simple – living, kitchen, bedroom, bath with two special spaces, a private garden, and a writer’s loft. The house is designed for the owner and visitors to the future nature preserve to be intimately connected to the cycles of the day, weather, and seasons, as well as the abundant local flora and fauna. Standing in the center of the living room you are only eight feet away from the courtyard to the north and the southern view through the trees and across the valley. In the master bed with the sliding glass doors open, the bedroom becomes a sleeping screen porch in the forest. From the writer’s tower, it seems as if you can touch the moon and stars, brilliant in the black sky.