Nestled in a landscape of greenery filled with trees, a chicken coop and an organic garden, Sue Bridge’s cottage, called “Long View,” is completely self-sustaining, allowing her to live off the grid since 2007.
Bridge is the founder of Wildside Cottage and Gardens, a demonstration and education site on 83 acres off of Fisher Place Road in Conway that focuses on the possibilities and benefits of sustainable living, encouraging a “can-do approach to an uncertain future.” Wildside has been offering tours and workshops to local classes and garden clubs for about a decade, creating an educational momentum that has grown to be at the heart of Bridge’s goal for Wildside.
“We are looking at the future needs of next generations,” Bridge explained. “Given the crisis we’re facing in terms of climate change, we can’t turn people away.”
Following such growth and responsibility, Bridge feels the need to bring younger energy into Wildside to continue the active stewardship of the land. “Stone’s Throw,” Wildside’s newest cottage project, was born from Bridge’s idea to personally downsize while still expanding the sustainable nature of the site. Once completed, Bridge will live in “Stone’s Throw” and land stewards will live in the original larger cottage.
Bridge began searching for a contractor for this project in late summer 2020 — one whose values would align with her desire to create as much of an energy-efficient structure as the existing cottage on Wildside’s property. Enter Will Elwell of Elwell Construction, a retired contractor having spent his last 15 or so years doing post-and-beam construction with local, sustainable materials whenever possible.
Bridge and Elwell knew each other from their time working to oppose Northeast Energy Direct’s proposed pipeline in 2015. The pipeline was supposed to go through land in Ashfield; Elwell built a replica of the cabin once owned by Henry David Thoreau and placed it on the land the pipeline was supposed to run through. That statement — of what the pipeline would be disrupting if placed in Western Massachusetts — stood out to Bridge and, since, she has admired Elwell’s philosophy.
Elwell, however, initially declined Bridge’s offer to build her new home. He was happy to “hang up the hammer” in retirement to spend more time gardening and with his children and grandchildren. Four weeks after the first offer, Elwell received another email from Bridge. The subject: “In Desperation.”
Once he visited Wildside, Elwell was committed. Bridge’s idea to build a new, deep-green cottage on the property to allow her to downsize and step slightly away from Wildside’s maintenance, Elwell said, resonated with him enough to pull him out of retirement.
“After she told me about what she wanted to do, I just get more and more interested and it got to the point where I said, ‘I can’t refuse to work on this. It sounds great. I would love to help you out,’” Elwell recalled.
Through the winter, he honed in on the final plan. About 800 square feet altogether (half the size of the first cottage), the new structure will feature floor-to-ceiling windows, a living roof, solar power and thick walls of insulation. The cottage itself will be bermed into a hill, creating naturally occurring temperature regulation and insulation. From layout to building codes, Elwell has faced it all, the latter of which he says have required him to “stretch the envelope” of what he thought was possible when building a house.
“I look at the situation, the site and try to understand how the building will fit into or harmonize with the environment there,” Elwell said. “We want these buildings to converse with each other.”
In this case, he created plans so the project correlates with Bridge’s attitude toward living — she wants to be connected to the environment, not in control of it.
“Sue and I kind of are in harmony with this idea that this project is to illustrate a way of building that is practical, is in harmony with the environment and actually improves the life experience of the occupants,” Elwell continued.
While this type of project is more expensive upfront by the nature of its off-the-grid structure, Bridge explained she will be saving money in the long run. By not needing to pay for water, heat, electricity or fossil fuel consumption, the cottage will eventually be less expensive and consistently environmentally sound.
“When it’s hot, we open a window. When it’s cold, we put on a sweater,” Bridge explained. “I want to make it look like it belongs right here in the Earth.”
Bridge said this new cottage will serve as another model proving that living off of the energy grid is not only reliable, but joyful. By emphasizing how people can work with the environment to enhance their lives, Bridge is, in her own way, responding to the existential crisis she says climate change presents to humanity.
Ella Adams, an intern at the Greenfield Recorder, is a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.