Living in a glass house

Ann Hengel spent two years looking for just the right downtown condo.

She wanted a new, contemporary building. "I was coming from a traditional, Colonial-style house in the country, and I wanted to go modern," she said. And she wanted walls of windows with a skyline view.

"I saw a place with floor-to-ceiling glass and loved the look of it," she said.

It's a look that more Minnesotans are craving, and more developers are delivering.

"Buyers expect a lot of big windows," said Scott Parkin, principal with Hoffman Parkin Urban Realty and sales manager at Cobalt, the Minneapolis condo building where Hengel recently bought her home.

"Everyone knows the technology is there; 50 years ago, you couldn't do it [glass-walled units], you'd lose so much heat," Parkin said. But today's engineered glass, with double panes and a layer of insulating air or gases, makes floor-to-ceiling windows more practical and desirable.

Views, of course, are the big payoff of living surrounded by glass.

"The sunsets are beautiful up here," said Hengel, whose ninth-floor end unit offers panoramic vistas of downtown to the southwest and Washington Avenue to the north. Dusk, when daylight yields to glittering nightscape, is her favorite time to entertain, she said. "The look changes so dramatically."

But city views aren't the only ones being framed by walls of windows. Some suburban condos also are going the all-glass route, including Reflections at Bloomington Central Station, the state's first LEED-certified high-rise condo development. Reflections overlooks the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the river, and glass walls were chosen to make the most of its setting, said listing agent Kathy Harmon. "Minnesotans love water views."

Glass posed a challenge because of Reflections' proximity to the Hiawatha light rail line and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport flight path. "We wanted to protect folks from noise, which glass does not do well," Harmon said. The solution was "curtain walls" -- three sheets of glass with air pockets in between.

Mental health enhancer

For some, glass is a health choice as well as an aesthetic one. People who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) during Minnesota's long winters often find that living in a glass-walled home lifts their spirits, said Kim Ferrel, an Edina Realty agent who represents the Bookmen Stacks condos in Minneapolis' Warehouse District, where every unit features floor-to-ceiling glass.

"Natural light is huge," Ferrel said. "Seasonal depression is a big thing for some people, and windows make a difference."

She's experienced it herself. When she lived in a traditional enclosed condo, "I felt very heavy and weighted down there." Since moving to a glass-walled condo, "I feel very light and happy."

The flip side of today's wide-open views, of course, is that people outside can easily see in. Walls of glass become lighted display windows once darkness falls.

"People love the openness, but it becomes this fishbowl," said designer Linda Miller, owner of Cities Interiors. "The windows can be difficult. They need to be dressed in one form or another."

But some glass-loving homeowners say the increased visibility is a small price to pay for the many benefits.

"Privacy is not an issue," said Cindy Shingler, who bought a seventh-floor unit at Cobalt last year. "I like it open. If somebody happens to be staring up, so be it."

She and her husband, Jim, who sold their house in Eden Prairie last year, now spend their winters in Naples, Fla., and their summers downtown in their "glass box," Cindy said. "You see weather systems in a whole different way. And there's no better place to watch fireworks."

The Shinglers' unit has floor-to-ceiling glass walls on three sides. "That was important to us," she said. "Our common wall is the width of an oven. It doesn't have that apartment feel, and the glass is a big part of that."

Kim Palmer • 617-673-4784