*Two hempcrete structures west of Loveland, CO were opened to the public in May. Photo by Mary Dean*

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By Jean Lotus

In the foothills of Colorado this summer, owners welcomed the public to an open house for a new homey hempcrete cottage. Up a steep mountain trail outside of Loveland, visitors on May 26 toured the 800 sq ft home and a two-story garage with office space, both constructed with pre-assembled hemp-lime panels.

The home has been an ongoing project for owners Andrea Longo and Steve Okay, transplanted from San Francisco’s tech scene. They purchased the land, frequented by elk, mule deer and wild turkeys, in 2018, and noted the hundreds of burned pine trees from a wildfire that blew through a decade past.

“My goals for this house were fire resistance and sustainable materials where we can, and accessibility,” Longo told HempBuild Mag.

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*Owners [L-R] Steve Okay and Andrea Longo pose in front of their fire-resistant hempcrete cottage with builder Jeremy Stephen near Loveland, CO. Photo by Jean Lotus*

Visitors included a staffer from the Colorado Department of Agriculture who saw first-hand how industrial hemp could be used in building materials.

Currently completed on the site are the 800 sq. foot guest cottage and 2,000 sq. foot garage and workshop, both constructed with hempcrete panels. Still-to-come is a 3,000 sq. foot main house. For the guest cottage, the couple chose a golden natural plaster tint that reminded them of buildings they saw visiting Salerno, Italy.

Longo said she made a “4th-grade level sketch” of the house but it was ultimately designed and engineered by Crown Jade Engineering in Wellington, CO.

The home and garage required 20,000 lbs of hemp hurd and 3,250 bags of lime, said general contractor and builder Jeremy Stephen of Steamboat Springs, CO-based Evolve Construction. This is Stephen’s third hempcrete home he’s built in Colorado, and the first with pre-constructed 8 x 4 foot panels.

The remote location and a well producing only 23 gallons of water per hour led to the decision to construct the house panels off site in Grand Junction, CO and transport them 400 miles, Stephen said. (One panel cracked in transit, but was easily patched.) The garage panels were cast on site, cured and then pulled upright.

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*Hemp-lime garage and work space on the property. Photo courtesy of Steve Heising*

Stephen used imported hurd and binder from France – where hemp-lime has been used for 30 years – because he could show European testing data to Larimer County’s building department.

“The French have been doing it the longest and they have the manufacturing data,” Stephen said. The panels rate an insulation R-value of 1.9 per inch, according to French specs. Even so, the house walls are only half hempcrete. Builders used mineral wool insulation and drywall for the inner walls to reach a total insulation value of R 30.

“We came up with a hybrid wall system that meets all the values, meets all the code, and what turned out to be an advantage is the electricians understood it a lot better,” Stephen noted.

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*Owners Steve Okay and Andrea Longo pose inside their hempcrete cottage. Photo by Jean Lotus*

Permitting and back-and-forth with the building department took a frustrating seven months, said Stephen.

But a shocking regional event seemed to suddenly boost the project forward. The Marshall Fire on December 30, 2021 in Boulder County burned more than 1,000 homes and structures in a few hours causing one of the largest property losses in Colorado history.

“I reminded [the Building Department] that hempcrete wasn’t just insulation, it has great fire resistance,” Stephen said. The final permitting green light came a week later.

Protection from Colorado Wildfires

The home was built with fire resistance in mind, owner Longo said.

The roof is metal with flush recessed lighting and cement board soffits and fascias. Windows are tempered glass.

“There’s just no wood on the outside at all to burn,” Stephen said.

The Loveland project has not been cheap, and builder and owners agree that the home is a “proof of concept” and ideally when the hemp building industry has caught up, this kind of structure can be built with local materials that have consistent specs and proven manufacturing data.

As it was, Stephen said the project was an experiment to lower costs and cut construction time by using pre-constructed panels.

“This was an opportunity, obviously, to do this in a custom home environment,” he said. “But we're bringing costs down and we're using what we think is a better product, more natural and healthier for you to live in and for the planet.”

Hempcrete is “a product for the future, for affordable housing, for veteran housing,” he added.

Stephen’s next project is a commercial build near Durango, CO in partnership with Citizens for Clean Energy sponsored by a $100,000 grant from the Four Corners Carbon Removal Coalition which supports reducing embodied carbon in building materials. The project will use locally grown hurd, (about 35,000 lbs) if they can find it processed to the right specs, said organizer Steve Heising.

Meanwhile, builder Stephen says the Loveland project moves hemp building closer to a reality across Colorado and in the United States.

“I gotta give Andrea and Steve props for how much support they gave us during all the challenges we had in doing a sustainable build like this,” Stephen said. “We want to thank them for allowing this to happen and allowing us to be a part of this and use their property for this proof of concept.”