As a native Arkansan returning home by way of famously au naturel Portland, Oregon, William Wooten is no stranger to environmentally conscious living. “It’s everywhere in Portland,” he says with a confirming laugh, “and it’s exactly what we wanted for our life here in Little Rock.” Serial urban home renovators and builders, Wooten and his wife Rina scoped out downtown Little Rock early in the search for unclaimed land and settled in the Governor’s Mansion District with the help of Herron Horton Architects.
“It’s about working to find a peaceful place to live, retreat and celebrate. The most meaningful client-architect conversations center on how the family will shape a life for themselves over time,” explains Jennifer Herron, whose husband Jeff Horton makes the other half of Herron Horton Architects. For the Wootens, that life is marked by a laundry list of checkpoints: a decidedly small, low-maintenance house amenable to rescuing animals, vegetable gardening, the use of modern, energy-efficient materials and a deep-rooted relationship to the surrounding neighborhood.
The list was no challenge for Herron and Horton, who enjoy creating responsible, eco-friendly homes and define their design philosophy as “building once well,” which includes using vastly sustainable materials. The Wooten home, for example, dons a ribbed metal roof, which is not only a high-performance insulator but also a throwback to William’s first job as a sheet-metal worker. Less conventionally, coated ribbed metal constitutes the exterior siding in a Patrician Bronze hue, which is an aesthetic complement to the rich cedar panels near the front entrance of the home and reminiscent of the traditional board-and-batten exteriors, which are common in historic districts.
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