Through architecture, products and systems, VISION House Asheville demonstrates the home and health connection.
When people shop for a home today, they’re looking for more than just a floor plan and a price point: they’re looking for a sanctuary where they can live their best lives. They want a home that makes it easier to feel physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.
In Green Builder Media’s COGNITION Smart Data™ surveys, 65% of buyers said that health, wellness or sleep considerations were a major or moderate factor in their home upgrade or renovation decisions. While physical, mental and emotional wellness matters most when people think about a healthy home, they also consider spiritual wellbeing, family and social connections, longevity and aging, climate protection and financial wellbeing to be important.
Wellness is driving renovation decisions. Nearly two-thirds of respondents say health, wellness, or sleep played a major or moderate role in their latest home upgrade.
All of those factors and more are incorporated into the design and construction of VISION House Asheville, a partnership between Green Builder Media and Alair Asheville | Red Tree, a member of Alair Homes, North America's largest custom home building and renovation network.
The custom home in the Beaverdam community will showcase how wellness architecture, innovative products and building science can generate a healthy, high-performance home that will be resilient to climate impacts.
“After Hurricane Helene in 2024, we wanted to rejuvenate our community and we decided to work on a custom home that would demonstrate resilience and wellness design,” says Brandon Bryant, president and partner, Alair Asheville l Red Tree. “We wanted to show that homes can be restorative, a place where you can refuel that provides physical, mental, spiritual and emotional benefits, not just shelter.”
The VISION House Asheville, which will serve as an educational tool for more than 80 Alair locations across the U.S. and Canada, starts with the premise that homes can be intentionally designed to elevate wellness through healthy materials, indoor air quality, lighting systems, acoustics and biophilic design, which connects indoor and outdoor living spaces for healthier living.
“While this is a custom home, we want to demonstrate that building a healthier environment can be attainable, not limited to affluent households,” Bryant says. “It’s important for people to be able to see themselves in a home like this. A lot of the design elements don’t cost a thing, yet this home offers a place where someone can come home from work or school and naturally breathe better air, eat healthier foods that they’ve grown in their own home and drink cleaner water.”
Healthy living starts in the kitchen. VISION House Asheville pairs natural materials and abundant daylight through windows with a built-in hydroponic garden that puts fresh food within reach. The space will feature Kohler plumbing fixtures, including cast iron products featuring up to 80% recycled material, and Daltile’s Relicca and Nu Bare tile lines, alongside ONE Quartz Surfaces for durable, low-maintenance kitchen and bathroom countertops.
Architectural Design for Wellness
The VISION House Asheville’s floor plan provides indoor-outdoor connections, places for privacy and solitude as well as social experiences with friends, neighbors and family members. In addition, the house is designed for resilience, which can relieve owners’ mental and financial stress. For example, the home includes lots of large windows from Wythe Windows for natural light, but protects them with overhangs and covered areas. The roof is optimized for additional solar panels from Jinko.
Large corner windows are placed in the primary suite and in the lower level, located on the north side of the house, to bring in extra natural light. In the “exhale” room, designed for meditation and quiet activities, the floor plan includes additional windows for light. The VISION House Asheville will include automated lighting and GE Proseo Shades from Savant, which can be programmed to follow circadian rhythms to allow residents to waken naturally with morning light and relax with gradually reduced lighting in the evening.
“Throughout the house there are visual connections to nature wherever possible,” says Gina Taterus, lead interior designer for Alair Asheville | Red Tree. “The house is designed with large rooms without cutting off any views because we know from research that seeing nature, even from inside a home, can reduce stress and lower your heart rate.”
The biophilic design in the house includes thermal and air flow variability, which helps people feel calm and focus better, according to Taterus.
“The windows are operable, so when we can have the windows or the slider doors in the back open, you're getting things like birdsong coming in and breezes, which help reduce stress and have overall wellness benefits,” she says.
In the back of the house, landscape architect Jennifer Verprauskus, owner of Bare Root Designs, is creating connections to nature with wandering paths, little bridges over rain gardens and a two-level deck.
“While you want to see outside from inside, I think it's vitally more important for us to invite you to come outside, instead of inviting the outside in,” Bryant says.
Along with the serene backyard, Bryant says they’re spending twice as much on the front of the house including landscaping, a courtyard and a porch.
“We designed the front porch to be eight feet deep so it’s usable space, but since it faces due south, we also added overhangs for shade,” Bryant says. “Asheville gets lots of heavy rain, so we designed the home so the water flows into gutters and into the rain garden. We want to give this house the best chance to be a 100-year house.”
The front porch is meant to encourage residents to interact with their neighbors and friends. Sonos is installing speakers on the front porch so residents can set the mood, and the courtyard will have a fire pit for another natural element that organically connects people to the earth, Taterus says.
This living room was designed to restore. With warm natural finishes, expansive windows and outdoor connections, it creates an inviting place to unwind and gather. The Wythe high-performance windows keep outdoor particulates outside, which matters enormously near roadways and during wildfire smoke events.
Interior Wellness Features
Throughout the home, Taterus chose products with low VOCs and healthy finishes to limit indoor pollutants. In addition, she chose natural materials as often as possible to keep the biophilic design consistent. In the kitchen, for example, she chose white oak flooring and cabinets and natural quartzite stone counters.
“We’re having a rammed earth-style range hood made with plaster in natural colors, which will look very organic,” Taterus says. “We’ve added refined lighting in polished nickel which is a little more upscale to contrast with the organic pieces.”
A unique feature in the kitchen will be a hydroponic garden tucked into a cabinet so residents can grow their own vegetables, herbs and fruit.
“We want to make healthy eating as easy as possible, so not only is the food right there, but we’re also installing an induction cooktop with sous vide cooking options,” she says. “We’ll have a full house water filtration system, which means not just drinking water, but the water you cook with and bathe in will be filtered.”
In the bathrooms, Taterus chose a large-scale tile by Daltile that minimizes grout lines, is easier to clean and durable. Daltile’s countertops will be used in the bathrooms and kitchen.
“In the primary bathroom, we’re installing Kohler’s Anthem shower, which has a digital control with a rain head and handheld shower,” Taterus. “In the lower level bathroom, we’re installing Kohler’s Anthem EvoCycle system, which reduces water usage by up to 80%. It has a pump system and filtration system that filters out waste particles and soaps, reuses part of the water and adds in fresh water.”
An innovative feature from Kohler, its Dekoda system, is an add-on to their Veil toilet in the primary bathroom that monitors multiple health indicators from bathroom activity.
Also from Kohler, Taterus added the Aquifer beverage system, which provides flat or sparkling water and hot water from the tap, to a coffee bar.
Research demonstrates the importance of good sleep and stress reduction to improve physical, mental and emotional health. At VISION House Asheville, multiple features contribute to a calm, quiet home, including triple pane windows from Wythe and insulation from Greenfiber, both of which contribute to noise reduction from outside sources.
“The Sonos audio system can be used for background music to relax you, and you can use it to create a customized sleep playlist or just calming sounds to help you sleep,” Bryant says.
Natural light, wooded views, and a dedicated exercise space brings everyday wellness home at VISION House Asheville. Sonos audio and Savant lighting controls pair calming soundscapes with daylight and adjustable lighting to support relaxation and renewal in the dedicated wellness room. Greenfiber insulation provides sound attenuation in addition to insulative properties.
Essential Wellness Feature: Indoor Air Quality
Green Builder Media’s Cognition Smart Data finds that homebuyers’ top non-negotiable wellness feature is natural light, followed by non-toxic materials, fresh air ventilation, air filtration and operable windows. Clearly, today’s buyers understand the importance of indoor air quality.
Daylight leads the must-have list. COGNITION Smart Data shows buyers also prioritize non-toxic materials and fresh air ventilation, putting healthy home fundamentals front and center.
At VISION House Asheville, an all-encompassing approach to better indoor air quality includes designing a tight house, preventing chemicals from getting into the house through material choices, and then controlling temperature and humidity with a heating, air conditioning and ventilation system from Daikin.
“We’re doing the basic things like vented bath fans to the exterior and installing an ERV,” Bryant says. “A dehumidification system will be connected to the HVAC system, with Daikin’s controls, but Savant will have everything on one app. That way all these systems are working behind the scenes without the homeowners needing to know how everything works.”
The combination of architecture, products, systems and building science will all work together to improve daily life for residents of VISION House Asheville and similar homes.
The Business Case for Wellness
Rather than a collection of wellness gadgets and the latest trends such as infrared saunas and cold plunges, a home designed for wellness can systematically support a healthy lifestyle for homeowners.
“You can't really place a value on your health, and if your home is helping keep you healthier, it’s automatically more valuable to you than a less healthy home,” Taterus says. “You don't even really have to spend much more money. It's just thinking about and making smart decisions about the way a home is designed. If you think about what you put into your body, the things that touch you and surround you, that impacts your physical and mental health.”
While you can’t automatically assign a percentage increase in price to a home that makes people feel better, a home built with wellness in mind may increase resident satisfaction, which adds to the architect’s and builder’s reputation. Healthy living can support aging in place, potentially reduced health care costs, and improved sleep quality, which in turn generates physical and mental health benefits.
“We all know from science that if you see healthy food, you eat healthy food,” Bryant says. “Instead of thinking about buying that $6,000 sleep number bed, maybe we should start talking first about the lighting we're putting in homes, the shading and where the windows are placed. Let’s talk about the air quality and about getting sunlight quickly, early in the morning, and about the importance of drinking 8 to 12 ounces of water before you do anything else. You can see that when you water plants, they just bounce back, right? People need light, air and water, too.”
Designing a home that automates healthy habits and provides a calm, restorative setting doesn’t have to be reserved for the wealthiest households: it can become the default in design.
Wellness by Design
Through architecture, products and systems, VISION House Asheville demonstrates the home and health connection.
When people shop for a home today, they’re looking for more than just a floor plan and a price point: they’re looking for a sanctuary where they can live their best lives. They want a home that makes it easier to feel physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.
In Green Builder Media’s COGNITION Smart Data™ surveys, 65% of buyers said that health, wellness or sleep considerations were a major or moderate factor in their home upgrade or renovation decisions. While physical, mental and emotional wellness matters most when people think about a healthy home, they also consider spiritual wellbeing, family and social connections, longevity and aging, climate protection and financial wellbeing to be important.
Wellness is driving renovation decisions. Nearly two-thirds of respondents say health, wellness, or sleep played a major or moderate role in their latest home upgrade.
All of those factors and more are incorporated into the design and construction of VISION House Asheville, a partnership between Green Builder Media and Alair Asheville | Red Tree, a member of Alair Homes, North America's largest custom home building and renovation network.
The custom home in the Beaverdam community will showcase how wellness architecture, innovative products and building science can generate a healthy, high-performance home that will be resilient to climate impacts.
“After Hurricane Helene in 2024, we wanted to rejuvenate our community and we decided to work on a custom home that would demonstrate resilience and wellness design,” says Brandon Bryant, president and partner, Alair Asheville l Red Tree. “We wanted to show that homes can be restorative, a place where you can refuel that provides physical, mental, spiritual and emotional benefits, not just shelter.”
The VISION House Asheville, which will serve as an educational tool for more than 80 Alair locations across the U.S. and Canada, starts with the premise that homes can be intentionally designed to elevate wellness through healthy materials, indoor air quality, lighting systems, acoustics and biophilic design, which connects indoor and outdoor living spaces for healthier living.
“While this is a custom home, we want to demonstrate that building a healthier environment can be attainable, not limited to affluent households,” Bryant says. “It’s important for people to be able to see themselves in a home like this. A lot of the design elements don’t cost a thing, yet this home offers a place where someone can come home from work or school and naturally breathe better air, eat healthier foods that they’ve grown in their own home and drink cleaner water.”
Healthy living starts in the kitchen. VISION House Asheville pairs natural materials and abundant daylight through windows with a built-in hydroponic garden that puts fresh food within reach. The space will feature Kohler plumbing fixtures, including cast iron products featuring up to 80% recycled material, and Daltile’s Relicca and Nu Bare tile lines, alongside ONE Quartz Surfaces for durable, low-maintenance kitchen and bathroom countertops.
Architectural Design for Wellness
The VISION House Asheville’s floor plan provides indoor-outdoor connections, places for privacy and solitude as well as social experiences with friends, neighbors and family members. In addition, the house is designed for resilience, which can relieve owners’ mental and financial stress. For example, the home includes lots of large windows from Wythe Windows for natural light, but protects them with overhangs and covered areas. The roof is optimized for additional solar panels from Jinko.
Large corner windows are placed in the primary suite and in the lower level, located on the north side of the house, to bring in extra natural light. In the “exhale” room, designed for meditation and quiet activities, the floor plan includes additional windows for light. The VISION House Asheville will include automated lighting and GE Proseo Shades from Savant, which can be programmed to follow circadian rhythms to allow residents to waken naturally with morning light and relax with gradually reduced lighting in the evening.
“Throughout the house there are visual connections to nature wherever possible,” says Gina Taterus, lead interior designer for Alair Asheville | Red Tree. “The house is designed with large rooms without cutting off any views because we know from research that seeing nature, even from inside a home, can reduce stress and lower your heart rate.”
The biophilic design in the house includes thermal and air flow variability, which helps people feel calm and focus better, according to Taterus.
“The windows are operable, so when we can have the windows or the slider doors in the back open, you're getting things like birdsong coming in and breezes, which help reduce stress and have overall wellness benefits,” she says.
In the back of the house, landscape architect Jennifer Verprauskus, owner of Bare Root Designs, is creating connections to nature with wandering paths, little bridges over rain gardens and a two-level deck.
“While you want to see outside from inside, I think it's vitally more important for us to invite you to come outside, instead of inviting the outside in,” Bryant says.
Along with the serene backyard, Bryant says they’re spending twice as much on the front of the house including landscaping, a courtyard and a porch.
“We designed the front porch to be eight feet deep so it’s usable space, but since it faces due south, we also added overhangs for shade,” Bryant says. “Asheville gets lots of heavy rain, so we designed the home so the water flows into gutters and into the rain garden. We want to give this house the best chance to be a 100-year house.”
The front porch is meant to encourage residents to interact with their neighbors and friends. Sonos is installing speakers on the front porch so residents can set the mood, and the courtyard will have a fire pit for another natural element that organically connects people to the earth, Taterus says.
This living room was designed to restore. With warm natural finishes, expansive windows and outdoor connections, it creates an inviting place to unwind and gather. The Wythe high-performance windows keep outdoor particulates outside, which matters enormously near roadways and during wildfire smoke events.
Interior Wellness Features
Throughout the home, Taterus chose products with low VOCs and healthy finishes to limit indoor pollutants. In addition, she chose natural materials as often as possible to keep the biophilic design consistent. In the kitchen, for example, she chose white oak flooring and cabinets and natural quartzite stone counters.
“We’re having a rammed earth-style range hood made with plaster in natural colors, which will look very organic,” Taterus says. “We’ve added refined lighting in polished nickel which is a little more upscale to contrast with the organic pieces.”
A unique feature in the kitchen will be a hydroponic garden tucked into a cabinet so residents can grow their own vegetables, herbs and fruit.
“We want to make healthy eating as easy as possible, so not only is the food right there, but we’re also installing an induction cooktop with sous vide cooking options,” she says. “We’ll have a full house water filtration system, which means not just drinking water, but the water you cook with and bathe in will be filtered.”
In the bathrooms, Taterus chose a large-scale tile by Daltile that minimizes grout lines, is easier to clean and durable. Daltile’s countertops will be used in the bathrooms and kitchen.
“In the primary bathroom, we’re installing Kohler’s Anthem shower, which has a digital control with a rain head and handheld shower,” Taterus. “In the lower level bathroom, we’re installing Kohler’s Anthem EvoCycle system, which reduces water usage by up to 80%. It has a pump system and filtration system that filters out waste particles and soaps, reuses part of the water and adds in fresh water.”
An innovative feature from Kohler, its Dekoda system, is an add-on to their Veil toilet in the primary bathroom that monitors multiple health indicators from bathroom activity.
Also from Kohler, Taterus added the Aquifer beverage system, which provides flat or sparkling water and hot water from the tap, to a coffee bar.
Research demonstrates the importance of good sleep and stress reduction to improve physical, mental and emotional health. At VISION House Asheville, multiple features contribute to a calm, quiet home, including triple pane windows from Wythe and insulation from Greenfiber, both of which contribute to noise reduction from outside sources.
“The Sonos audio system can be used for background music to relax you, and you can use it to create a customized sleep playlist or just calming sounds to help you sleep,” Bryant says.
Natural light, wooded views, and a dedicated exercise space brings everyday wellness home at VISION House Asheville. Sonos audio and Savant lighting controls pair calming soundscapes with daylight and adjustable lighting to support relaxation and renewal in the dedicated wellness room. Greenfiber insulation provides sound attenuation in addition to insulative properties.
Essential Wellness Feature: Indoor Air Quality
Green Builder Media’s Cognition Smart Data finds that homebuyers’ top non-negotiable wellness feature is natural light, followed by non-toxic materials, fresh air ventilation, air filtration and operable windows. Clearly, today’s buyers understand the importance of indoor air quality.
Daylight leads the must-have list. COGNITION Smart Data shows buyers also prioritize non-toxic materials and fresh air ventilation, putting healthy home fundamentals front and center.
At VISION House Asheville, an all-encompassing approach to better indoor air quality includes designing a tight house, preventing chemicals from getting into the house through material choices, and then controlling temperature and humidity with a heating, air conditioning and ventilation system from Daikin.
“We’re doing the basic things like vented bath fans to the exterior and installing an ERV,” Bryant says. “A dehumidification system will be connected to the HVAC system, with Daikin’s controls, but Savant will have everything on one app. That way all these systems are working behind the scenes without the homeowners needing to know how everything works.”
The combination of architecture, products, systems and building science will all work together to improve daily life for residents of VISION House Asheville and similar homes.
The Business Case for Wellness
Rather than a collection of wellness gadgets and the latest trends such as infrared saunas and cold plunges, a home designed for wellness can systematically support a healthy lifestyle for homeowners.
“You can't really place a value on your health, and if your home is helping keep you healthier, it’s automatically more valuable to you than a less healthy home,” Taterus says. “You don't even really have to spend much more money. It's just thinking about and making smart decisions about the way a home is designed. If you think about what you put into your body, the things that touch you and surround you, that impacts your physical and mental health.”
While you can’t automatically assign a percentage increase in price to a home that makes people feel better, a home built with wellness in mind may increase resident satisfaction, which adds to the architect’s and builder’s reputation. Healthy living can support aging in place, potentially reduced health care costs, and improved sleep quality, which in turn generates physical and mental health benefits.
“We all know from science that if you see healthy food, you eat healthy food,” Bryant says. “Instead of thinking about buying that $6,000 sleep number bed, maybe we should start talking first about the lighting we're putting in homes, the shading and where the windows are placed. Let’s talk about the air quality and about getting sunlight quickly, early in the morning, and about the importance of drinking 8 to 12 ounces of water before you do anything else. You can see that when you water plants, they just bounce back, right? People need light, air and water, too.”
Designing a home that automates healthy habits and provides a calm, restorative setting doesn’t have to be reserved for the wealthiest households: it can become the default in design.
By Michele Lerner, Associate Editor
Michele Lerner is an award-winning freelance writer, editor, and author who writes about real estate, personal finance, and business.Also Read