Most will know Jens Risom, who died in 2016 at the age of 100, as a pillar of midcentury furniture design. But he also made a mark in a lesser-known way. In 1967, the Danish-born designer customized an A-frame he purchased from a Stanmar Leisure Homes catalog, turning it into a family summer home on Block Island. It would later land on the cover of Life, broadcasting to America the potential of prefab.

A half century later, his son Tom Risom has now followed in his footsteps. On the same acreage just down the hill from the A-frame, Tom and his wife, Pamela Austen, recently built their own prefab home with an eye toward the future.

“We took the plan that my father built and added 60 years of technology,” says Tom. Recently retired from a 30-year career as an engineer, Tom collaborated with Maine design firm Go Logic to create a 1,700-square-foot prefab built to Passive House standards. Even with its advantages—a high thermal performance, airtightness, and maximal solar heat gain, to name a few—the home features white cedar shingles and a shed roof that keeps with regional vernacular, and, like the A-frame, includes plenty of glass to capture the stunning views off the rugged coastline and Atlantic Ocean beyond.

"Prefab is the only way to build a house efficiently out here; my father had the right idea,” says Tom, who would know. After retiring, he took a role as Block Island’s building inspector. Due to the scarcity of materials and labor on the island, it typically takes two years, he says, to build a traditional home. Since his was prefabricated in Maine and trucked over on half a dozen 40-foot flatbeds, completing the home took less than six months.

Following Jens’s death, the couple purchased three of the Risom family’s seven acres outright, a plot of land situated in Block Island’s North End. The transaction helped keep the A-frame in the family as a summer home, and allowed Tom and Pamela to start fresh after downsizing from their larger family home in Connecticut.

“We wanted the home to have an island feel, more of a simple look. Modern, but island.”
—Pamela Austen, resident

Whereas Jens used his home as a summer retreat, the Risoms plan to spend their retirement on the remote island year round along with 900 other hardy full-time residents (the summer population swells to over 36,000). Tom spent summers here growing up, and Pamela has joined him on visits for the past two decades. “New England island living—the pioneer spirit—really appeals to me,” says Pam, who’s now retired from her role as an elementary school principal. “There’s something beautiful about the different quality of life.”

Tom and Pamela’s prefab is centered around an open-plan living area with an adjacent kitchen and dining space. Two guest bedrooms and a bath are positioned along a hallway to the back of the living area, while the primary bedroom and en suite bath are off to the side. A covered entry porch, a small foyer with storage, a screened-in porch, and a detached garage round out the arrangement. The Risoms also added a full basement where they store year-round essentials, a necessity when the mainland is a long ferry ride away.

Working from one of Go Logic’s ten customizable models, Tom made a few tweaks that included enlarging the en suite bath, adding a staircase to access the basement, adjusting the roofline to fit in with local code, and—much to the horror of Go Logic’s architects—adding a fireplace. “The winters out here are fun,” says Tom, deadpan. “If 100-mile-an-hour winds with a windchill of minus ten is fun.”

In most cases, a fireplace is at odds with making a home airtight, a fundamental of Passive House design. If Tom wanted a fireplace, Go Logic was adamant that there be no perforations in the hearth. So, Tom designed a hermetic shaft with a sealed glass front. “It doesn’t use any interior air to promote combustion,” he attests.

Triple-glazed, five-latch windows and exterior doors from Kneer-Sϋdfenster help create an airtight seal, but they also stand up to the extreme pressure of Atlantic Ocean “breezes.” The winds get so strong, in fact, that a Rhode Island building code requires homes be bolted down. “I spent a week drilling nearly a hundred one-inch holes into the concrete for all the threaded rods,” says Tom, who also acted as general contractor, completing much of the finish work himself.

In accordance with more local zoning requirements, the Risoms had to bump up the roofline of the middle section of the home about 18 inches. “It turned out well in the end,” says Tom. “It made the home feel less monolithic, and a little bit more like the terrain, which is rocky and hilly.” The change also added more deck space and gave the couple a private deck for the primary bedroom.

As for the home’s energy performance, the airtight building shell is insulated to an R-value of 70 at the foundation, 80 at the walls, and 100 at the roof. The windows and doors are orientated to maximize solar gain, and a heat-recovery ventilation system helps keep the air inside the home fresh while maintaining a tight seal. Electric baseboards provide supplemental heating when needed. But the couple says they rarely turn the heat on because the house is so well built. “We’re using the same 500 gallons of propane we got two years ago,” says Tom.

Block Island is powered mostly with propane. Only recently did it get an electric grid, but using it is expensive. (Energy produced by wind turbines dotting the island, says Tom, all goes back to the mainland.) Because the Risom’s home can sustain on so little, Tom and Pam don’t even use the energy produced by a five-kilowatt solar array on the roof of the garage; instead, they sell it back to the grid.

Inside the home, Jens Risom’s modernist aesthetic dominates. Most of the furnishings are pieces Tom inherited over the years as his father downsized. On occasion, Design Within Reach stops by to shoot in the house, and leaves behind a piece or two as payment. As a backdrop for these artifacts, the prefab is intentionally “austere,” says Tom. “It’s simple, but simple is not always easy. That’s something I learned from my father. You paint with a very fine brush, but it looks like you painted with a wide brush.” The home’s collection of eclectic artwork is very Danish modern, adding pops of color throughout.

A hallway feeding into the bedrooms is delineated by a large bookcase fashioned on-site by master carpenter Chris Mascola. On one side are books, and on the other, a display of art. The main living room holds two of Tom’s favorite pieces of his father’s: a round travertine marble coffee table sitting on a triangular metal base, and an oatmeal-gray couch. “He had the table in his living room his whole life,” he says. “It was a signature piece and appeared in catalogs, although the company never produced it.”

The Risoms are just starting their second winter on Block Island and are settling in with aplomb. “It was tough the first year because of Covid, but I’ve joined a book club, and we’re adjusting,” says Pam. “My dream is to buy the bookstore here,” she reveals. The couple spend as much time outdoors as possible, walking their three dogs and enjoying the wild, raw nature of the Atlantic.

“My father was drawn to the island because it reminded him of his childhood in Denmark,” says Tom. “It’s a magical place.” Safely tucked away on the northern tip of Block Island, just a stone’s throw from his father’s A-frame, he and Pam plan to revel in that magic for years to come.

This Nearly Net-Zero Prefab Home Is an Environmentalist’s Dream Come True

Project Credits:

Architect: Gunther Kragler, Go Logic / go_logic

Engineer: John P. Poulin, Albert Putnam Associates

Civil Engineer: David D. Gardner

Kitchen cabinetry design: Space Theory (Henrybuilt)

Interior Cabinetry Design: Mascola Construction