Stables Village by Thrive Home Builders

Stables Village is a 61-unit workforce housing project for the Town of Breckenridge, Colorado made up of single family, duplex and townhome units. Designed by Allen-Guerra Architecture, developed by Stables Village LLC and constructed by Thrive Homebuilders, the community is a "for sale" project aimed at workers and small business owners who are priced out of a home market with an average price of $2 million. Unfortunately, this is a common problem in Colorado’s resort communities.  Stables Village targets "missing middle" housing, between high density rentals and low density, unaffordable single-family homes. The home selected for this award entry is 87 Stallion Loop, a single-family detached home within the community.

The Town of Breckenridge provided land and subsidized costs. The criteria for the project included net zero energy and both embodied and operational carbon neutrality. Thrive was identified as the builder by virtue of its Panorama House project that was underway nearby at the time of selection.

The “mountain modern” styling provides  2 bedrooms and the garage on the first floor with the primary suite, a 4th bedroom, living, dining and kitchen upstairs to capture views and economical construction above the garage. Outdoor living is on a deck off the second floor living and dining areas. First floor bedrooms have direct outdoor access to facilitate multigenerational or roommate situations. The in-fill location of the community offers free transit to main street and the ski area and direct access to miles of trails for hiking, skiing and biking.

Footings are shallow, frost protected foundations with perimeter R-15 edge insulation. The first floor is slab on grade over R-13 of geofoam. Framing is built offsite into wall panels, floor trusses and roof trusses and shipped from the Denver area to Breckenridge. Floor and roof trusses are assembled into cassettes in the framer's shop and then erected with light cranes onsite as walls are also assembled. Offsite building is particularly valuable during cold winter months by facilitating the rapid enclosure of structures. Exterior walls are double 2x4 walls with an R-value of 39. Windows are energy star rated windows with U values of 0.25-.030 and Solar Heat Gain Coefficients of 0.3-0.31. The vaulted roof has R-68 insulation. Air tightness levels of 2.30 ACH 50 were achieved utilizing Aero Barrier.

The home is all electric. Heat pump hot water heating and cold climate heat pump heating and cooling are utilized.

A HERS Rating of -3 and a Carbon Index of 5 were achieved. The HERS Emissions Summary shows zero emissions of SO2, NOx, and an EUI of -1.9. An annual energy cost of zero and savings of $6,904 annually are predicted.  Embodied carbon was calculated in One Click LCA by the University of Denver.  The cost of an offset was determined and donated to the Town of Breckenridge to invest in local carbon offsetting projects.

Market acceptance of Stables Village has been extraordinary with homes sold by lottery. Our last 10 homes in the project attracted over 300 entries into the lottery.