Eco-friendly house on 30 acres near Marine on St. Croix listed at $1.6M

When Shawn and Rebecca Otto built their home just outside of Marine on St. Croix in the 1990s, sustainable houses tended to look strange, the couple recalled.

The Ottos wanted their May Township house to be energy efficient but without sacrificing pleasing aesthetics.

“Even back then, people were talking about climate change,“ Shawn Otto said. ”We didn’t want to build a house that was going to add to the problem."

The wind- and solar-powered, geothermal home they named “Breezy” for the gentle wind that blows across the property is “very mainstream and also very cutting edge,“ he said.

Rebecca Otto thinks of the three-bedroom, three-bathroom house as a great place to raise a family. Their son, now 30, is out of the house, and the parents are in their early 60s. Now that they’ve downsized to a different home, they’ve listed the 3,575-square-foot Breezy and its 30 acres of land at $1.6 million.

Neither of the Ottos are licensed professional architects, let alone sustainability experts, though Shawn Otto had studied architecture in high school and college. The couple had also worked on restoring historic homes as a side businesses, which helped them incorporate some of the beauty seen in older homes into Breezy.

Like in homebuilding, their main professions also appreciate structure. Rebecca Otto is a former Minnesota state auditor. Her husband has authored nonfiction books and novels with Minneapolis-based publisher Milkweed Editions and cowrote the screenplay for 2003’s Academy Award-nominated “House of Sand and Fog.”

Before they built Breezy, the Ottos consulted scientists, including researchers at the University of Minnesota, to create a home that could operate efficiently in the state’s climate.

They installed a wind generator they’d bought at a renewable energy fair outside the home, as a small wind-energy system can be a good source of electricity for some houses according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office.

Breezy’s other sustainable features include solar panels the Ottos added about six years ago. Any excess power the house generates during periods of low use goes to the local electric company, and the Ottos occasionally received checks reimbursing them for it.

Geothermal energy warms the house with an underground system that “draws heat out of the earth” and directs it into the home, Shawn Otto said. A massive stone fireplace contributes to the home’s in-floor radiant heat.

The building is so well insulated “it can be zero degrees outside, and it’ll be 75 in the house without the heat on,” he said.

The home’s orientation takes advantage of sunlight: South-facing windows let the low sun penetrate in the winter, while eaves block the overhead sun in summer.

Energy-saving features can be initially expensive, and homebuyers aren’t always immediately sold on their value, Shawn Otto said. So builders often disregard some of Breezy’s “hidden” features that can “make it more comfortable or more efficient,” he continued.

Breezy’s acres also hold a barn with stables, riding arena and meadow for Rebecca Otto, a longtime horse enthusiast. Washington County, where the home is, has one of the largest horse populations of any county in the state, according to University of Minnesota Extension.

“It’s a great area to ride in,” she said.

She added she also loves the property’s wildlife, which includes turkeys, deer, bluebirds, sandhill cranes and eagles that “fly really low over [the] driveway.”

As for the house itself, “it’s beautiful, comfortable and really well lit with natural light,” she said.

Shawn Otto loves that “around every corner, there are these unexpected spaces.”

“Even after 30 years,” he said, “I don’t get tired of that. Like the nook off the dining room that has three skylights.”

Marine on St. Croix is a close-knit, art-loving community, said Gwen Roden, a former city council member born and raised there. She moved away for a bit but returned in 1997 and has managed the Marine General Store, which celebrated its 175th anniversary last year.

“We had the first commercial saw mill in Minnesota, established in 1839,” Roden said, adding the General Store started as the Sawmill Company store in 1839 but registered as its current form in 1849.

Residents of the community, population about 650, decorate outdoor trees together and screen documentaries monthly from October to February. The town also maintains an independent library with access to the Washington County library, she said.

Breezy has even become a small draw to the area. Magazines and newspaper articles have featured it, and people have visited the house on tours for sustainable and solar homes as well as parties with hundreds of guests.

“Probably over the years,” Shawn Otto said, “we’ve had about 1,000 people come through to look at a good design that is also good to the earth.”

Bill Smitten, (651-246-9442, billsmitten@cbburnet.com) has the $1.6 million listing.