Karie Sullivan lives in an earth-berm house, burrowed into the ground on three sides. The front is clad in stained wood clapboard with white-trimmed windows with a sun-drenched southern exposure.
The house was built in 1981 and was influenced by Malcolm Wells, a well-known architect who championed earth-sheltered buildings. Wells was not involved in the design of the house, but the original owners consulted with him about its design and their ways of living in it.
The house encompasses 968 square feet on one level; its two bedrooms flank an open kitchen, dining area, and living room.
On a July morning, the kitchen is bathed in a warm shaft of light that enters through a skylight above the sink.
“I try to focus on natural materials and warm tones,” says Sullivan of her approach to decorating. Her collection of plants makes the house feel less like a “bunker,” she says. She likes to arrange “vignettes” of rocks, shells, photos, and trinkets, and a lot of her design touches include items she’s found at a swap shop.
The southern wall has three rows of windows — 22 in all, in various shapes and sizes — that stretch the entire length of the house and rise from floor to ceiling, which is 11 feet at the highest point under the building’s shed roof.
One of the bedrooms is her studio, and she gets up early to work while the light is best. At this time of year, she looks out on a garden bed full of flowers.
In the winter, Sullivan heats the main part of the house with a cast-iron stove. It’s a Jotul, a Norwegian design, and a gift from a friend who helped her restore it. It creates a warm central gathering spot in the house during the cold months.
The earth surrounding the structure provides valuable insulation: although Sullivan supplements the heat from the woodstove with electric heat, She was away during the blizzard that knocked out power across the Cape last February, but the house stayed at 50 degrees; her pipes did not freeze.
You can read the origiinal articlea at provincetownindependent.org