Denver home combines solar and geothermal but you'd never know it

Visitors walking past the small, tidy lawn outside Brent and Wendy Mathers' neo-modern Park Hill home have no idea that under the grass, two vertical pipes stretch 250 feet into the ground to heat and cool the house.

And most of them would be surprised to learn that the roof hosts 500 square feet of solar panels that help make the Mathers' home even more energy-efficient.

"It's intentionally disguised to keep it from being seen from the street," said Brent, an architect and woodworker who designed some of the furniture in the home, which is among those featured on the Park Hill Home Tour on Sept. 28.

The Mathers chose smooth, durable walnut for many of the surfaces in their home, including the kitchen cabinets and the floors. Orange accessories add a vibrant touch.

Brent and Wendy, who also is an architect, designed the house at 2334 Grape St. to visually suggest the unpretentious dimensions of other houses on the block. Most of those are older brick homes, one or two stories high, places that would fit comfortably inside a suburban McMansion.

But few of those neighboring houses come close to the energy-efficiency of the Mathers' home, which they built last year after acquiring the lot in 2011. Only a carriage house, leased to renters, stood on the property. When it was listed for sale, the Mathers snapped it up.

"We got a good deal, because prices were still depressed, and it's a nice, wide lot with good solar exposure," Brent said.

Green demolition

After stripping the carriage-house appliances and fixtures, which they donated to Habitat for Humanity, they demolished the structure, along with a 40-foot spruce and a couple of aspen. They saved the usable wood for a friend who, like Brent, is a woodworker.

Then they designed their home. They knew they wanted geothermal heating and solar energy, and hired Dan Schmied of Sensible Heating And Cooling.

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Denver home combines solar and geothermal but you'd never know it