Between 1908 and 1940, Sears Roebuck Co. sold more than 100,000 do-it-yourself home kits (called Sears Modern Homes) through its mail order catalog.

The homes, weighing up to 25 tons, were shipped on two railroad boxcars and then trucked locally to the home site. These kits included everything you needed to build your house, down to the screws and nails.

Sears Modern Homes built in that time span can still be found all over the country and are considered fine examples of American craftsmanship: well-designed, durable and affordable.

The art of the stylish, affordable home may have been lost to the McMansion tract-housing boom of late 20th century, but a version of it is now being resurrected in Santa Fe. The City Different boasts one of the very few American design firms specializing in houses built from pre-fabricated materials and assembled on-site.

But these contemporary dwellings sure aren't your grandfather's do-it-yourself home kits.

Arunas Repecka and Aaron Bohrer's design firm, h-haus, has updated the Modern Home concept, bringing it into the new century with elegant, eco-friendly designs adopted from European housing standards.

In Europe, particularly Germany and Austria, this type of home construction has been popular for some time, Repecka said. It can lower the cost of a home by 20 to 25 percent, due to decreased labor requirements, while still utilizing high-quality materials and innovative design.

Before coming to Santa Fe, Repecka, a structural engineer, operated a company that built homes in Europe. "We built multiple units, quickly, from prefabricated materials in Russia, Sweden, Saudi Arabia," he said.

To understand h-haus, it is important to understand the distinction between different kinds of pre-fabricated housing, Repecka said. "A modular house comes on an axle with a HUD tag, like a double-wide. A prefab house is built completely off site, delivered and placed on a foundation, move-in ready." h-haus is neither a modular nor a prefab house, he said. "It is an engineered, pre-cut, panelized home."

h-haus' structural components are manufactured off-site and shipped — along with windows, doors, lighting, cabinets, appliances, etc. — to the building site, where they will be assembled and constructed by a general contractor. Plumbing and electrical systems are installed by local tradesmen according to h-haus specifications.

"What we've done is utilize the industrial process to the greatest extent possible and apply that in a way that is intelligent," said Bohrer, an architect. Bohrer, who was previously associated with the New York office of I.M. Pei & Partners, founded the Santa Fe firm Archaeo Architects in 1996.

"We have paid attention to materials and technology that have been around for many years, but have never been utilized in this way before," Bohrer said. "It's like a flower arrangement: The flowers are grown somewhere else and we arrange them in a many-tiered program that is h-haus."

While Bohrer was with Pei, the firm was working on the Ronald Reagan Trade and Cultural Center and other large commercial projects. But even on design projects of such massive scale, the human element was paramount, Bohrer said. "They understood the relationship of people to the building and how they interacted with it, the symbiosis people have with their surroundings."

The Pei firm operated at a "high level of execution," Bohrer said. "Nothing was left unknown; they detailed just about everything. And (the design) worked; it was functional and someone on the other end could build it."

These are the same principles Bohrer brought to Archaeo Architects and to his own project, h-haus, he said.

High-end components

Repecka is responsible for turning Bohrer's designs into something substantive and workable. "We've selected the vendors and manufacturers needed to fulfill the performance we require," the engineer said.

Most of the components used in
h-haus construction are manufactured in Europe and are considered high-end. Examples include Rehau three-way tilt and turn windows, Fagor appliances, Alno cabinets, Liebner refrigerators, Belux skylights and Rappgo flooring.

Wall panels, among other structural components, are manufactured in the United States from h-haus design documents, Repecka said.

Particular attention is paid to high-performance, thermally efficient systems. "We've refined our wall system to an art," he said. The acoustically dampened panels are constructed of 1-inch x 2-inch steel tubing placed every 24 inches apart supporting a 71/4-inch polystyrene panel. The wall panels are thermally broken, Repecka said, which means the frame will not conduct heat or cold, as conventional framing can.

The walls have an insulation value of R-30, the floors R-38 and the roofs R-50. The houses are so tightly made and well-sealed that they require heat recovery ventilators in order to flush stale air, Repecka said. (A heat recovery ventilator brings in fresh air from the outside, while preheating the incoming air during the winter and precooling the incoming air during the summer.)

"The company that makes our panels says that (the panels) can reduce the utility cost by 20 to 40 percent, depending on climate," Bohrer said.

Although they don't call their houses "green," Repecka and Bohrer said they use many renewable and environmentally friendly materials and heating systems. h-haus utilizes a Danish solar water system, radiant heat, energy-efficient appliances, eco-friendly and FSC-certified flooring and countertop upgrades made of recycled glass and concrete. The steel framing is made of recycled material.

Because h-haus models are constructed on site, they qualify for conventional mortgage loans, Bohrer said.

Quickly built

In February 2006, h-haus constructed its Cube 5, 2,100-square-foot model, at the Cleveland Home and Garden Show. Built to code (though lacking plumbing) and reinforced to accommodate 10,000 visitors a day, the house was built in
19 days. (It was an extraordinary effort; the construction time was not typical.)

But their efficient design and pre-manufactured materials do allow h-haus homes to be built quickly. "An average home takes 6.2 months to build. Our homes take on an average four months," said Repecka.

This reduction in labor allows an average cost per square foot of $180 to $190 in the Santa Fe area. This includes customized design and high-grade materials and appliances. The average price for a custom home in the Santa Fe area can be upward of $450 per square foot, Repecka said.

h-haus has been four to five years in development, Bohrer said, and expects to get a building permit for a project on Bob Street by the end of March. A project in Tesuque was canceled last year as the result of a local architectural design review decision.

Bohrer said it's tough getting local review committees to consider modern house designs. "Sad to say, the experience has been one of disappointment. The associations seem to see panelized systems of construction as being of lesser quality.

"The Tesuque Architectural Review Committee said they didn't feel comfortable with our techniques. I suspect the underlying concern was with how our building looked. h-haus is not nostalgic; it doesn't fit into the pueblo-style type of design."

A place for local materials

But Bohrer calls his h-haus design regionally relevant.

"Our intention is to make a chameleon. Our house has fundamentally good planning techniques with passive energy modalities that allows us to adapt local building styles to the exterior in order to reflect the spirit of the community," he said.

"We can weave local materials into our house," Bohrer said. In Santa Fe, that might mean corrugated metal and hardy plank combined with stucco, he said.

h-haus designs are easily customizable; any design can be altered to fit a specific site or an owner's proclivity.

"What's really beautiful is the way our systems work together," Bohrer said. "It's an elegant solution to common construction problems.

Greg Glazner, professor of creative writing at the College of Santa Fe, has contracted with h-haus to design and provide materials for a house to be constructed on property he owns on Bob Street in Santa Fe.

"The plans are complete," he said. "Mine is a Cube 6 model (h-haus offers five different models) that's being customized. It's a two-story, three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot house."

Glazner said he chose h-haus for three reasons: the use of green, energy efficient, renewable materials; affordability; and spectacular design.

"Aaron (Bohrer) has a striking modernist aesthetic. I never thought I could get that kind of talent on my budget," Glazner said. Bohrer's commitment to use extraordinary design instead of expensive materials has resulted in a house that sports a textured, dimensional finish of corrugated metal and concrete board with some stucco, he said. "I get a whole lot more value and quality for what you usually can build a house for in Santa Fe."