Modern Atlanta Reveals an Asheville, NC, Modern

ZŪM House by Unity Homes Featured on Tour

by Rick Reynolds

For its 2015 home tours, Modern Atlanta, an organization dedicated to promoting modern design, branched out to include other southeast regions. On May 30 and 31, 2015, as part of their Modern Asheville tour, the ZŪM house by Unity Homes was opened to the public. Visitors to the new ZŪM House, a pre-fabricated, panelized residence with a high overall R-value and Passive House levels of air tightness, were toured by Unity Homes’ new Operations Steward, Andrew Dey, and Sales Associate, John Dunbar.

The enthusiastic owner, Nick Mimken, was also on hand to describe living in a sustainable, high performance home and to convey the home’s minuscule energy requirements after its first year of operation.

The bold, eye-catching, home was fabricated into panelized assemblies, off site, at Unity Homes’ facilities in Walpole, NH, shipped flat, and rapidly assembled on one of the few remaining infill lots in Asheville. The exterior features gray fiber cement board siding with extruded aluminum profiles and flashing. The strikingly modern home design features Douglas fir glulam timbers on the interior, with solid sawn Port Orford cedar timbers on the outside. A single, ducted mini split system both heats and cools the house, while an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) unit mechanically exchanges the indoor air.

Andrew Dey, a former Company Steward at Bensonwood (who recently returned after a decade-long hiatus running his own business, to head Unity Homes Operations), had this to say of the tour:

“As part of my orientation period at Unity Homes, it was great having the opportunity to witness first hand the favorable reaction of the folks touring the home. To a person, they all seemed pleased to see how easy, beautiful, and comfortable high performance living could be and surprised to learn that the home’s components had been pre-fabricated in New Hampshire. They clearly liked both the concept and the execution.”

The next ZŪM house, currently in fabrication, will be installed in Ohio by the end of July.