Christi Hissong : Proper Modern Home
- Brick + Tides
- Dec 16, 2025
- 9 min read
Updated: Jan 1
The foundation was only a few feet out of the frozen Scarborough ground, a neat geometry of concrete catching the winter sun. Ten degrees, bright and wind-bitten. Snow from last week still rimmed the perimeter, crisp and untouched. An excavator growled to life, a skid steer answered, and the Atlantic glinted coldly just beyond the lot.
This is where something long imagined begins to become real. After a year of planning, Christi stands inside the early shape of a home she once held only on paper, feeling the first signs of a family’s future begin to lift from the ground. She studied chemical engineering at UMaine, spent years in biotech, and grew up believing her career would follow the path of research, lab coats, and technical problem-solving.
But life had plans.
A scientist at heart, a builder by calling
Christi grew up in Biddeford, a math-and-science kid who graduated second in her class and earned a full scholarship to the University of Maine.
“I was a math and science nerd,” she said simply, though the truth is more impressive than she lets on. She first worked with the Portland company Binax — the same platform later used for COVID tests — helping scale Flu A, Flu B and RSV diagnostics from concept to nationwide use. And later for another Maine-based biotech firm called BIODESIGN in technical sales. It was cutting-edge work. Fast paced. Always evolving.
“There was always something new to learn,” she said. “It was like drinking from a fire hose.”
She thrived in biotech. But after she married Kurt, a builder, and became a mom to their son Griffen, she began helping him part-time. Marketing, selections, design questions, talking through ideas. Small things at first.
Then something surprising happened: she loved it. All of it. The decisions, the design flow, the problem-solving, the way a two-dimensional plan could hide opportunities or trouble spots.
Before long, she wasn’t standing beside the work. She was inside it.
Discovering Passive House — and a familiar kind of science
When she and Kurt began building a 45-lot subdivision in Arundel, Christi found her niche: solving the invisible problems.
“My biggest pet peeve is wasted space,” she said. “People spend a lot of money building their dream home.” She hated useless corners, awkward hallways, and oversized foyers no one ever used. She could look at plans and instantly see how people would actually live in them.
But the moment that changed everything came when they designed a home for themselves.
Down that path they discovered Passive House — a building philosophy focused on airtightness, continuous super insulation, high performance windows and doors, insulation, eliminating thermal bridging, balanced mechanical ventilation, and dramatically reducing energy use. The deeper Christi went, the more the work felt familiar.
“When we started looking at Passive House,” she said, “we learned that the materials were rapidly changing, that there's a tremendous amount of science involved with how these materials go together, it felt just as exciting as working in the biotech realm.”
Here was building as engineering.
Here were materials that needed correct sequencing.
Here were consequences if you got it wrong — moisture problems, vapor issues, mold.
It was biotech for buildings.
“Passive House and high-performance projects have enabled me to grow professionally and use my technical background in new ways, contributing to buildings that are healthier, more resilient, and better for the environment,” she said.
Proper Modern Home, at least in its modern form, was born from that spark.
Why these homes feel different
If you’ve ever walked into a Proper Modern Home, you feel it immediately. Cleaner air. Even temperature. A kind of quiet comfort that’s hard to name.
That feeling is not an accident.
One of their signatures is the ERV — the Energy Recovery Ventilation system that serves, in Christi’s words, as “the lungs of the home.”
Because the houses are built so airtight, fresh air must be introduced intentionally through an ERV. This air-exchanging system filters and gently warms or cools the incoming air while simultaneously exhausting stale indoor air.
“The system we use is about 90% efficient which means it is able to recover approximately 90% of the heat from the outgoing air to pre-condition the incoming fresh air” she said. “On a day like today, I don't want to bring in 10-degree air into my 68-degree home.”
For Christi, the difference is personal. “I have pretty bad asthma. Anecdotally, I use less allergy medication. I don't use my rescue inhaler nearly as frequently. It’s just a more comfortable space.”
There’s also airtightness itself — a number most homeowners never consider. Current code allows three full volumes of your home to leak to the outside every hour (3.0 ACH50). Passive House principles aim for 0.6 ACH50. Kurt and Christi’s home has been tested and verified at 0.28 ACH50! People worry the homes are “too tight.” Christi gently disagrees.
“In a typical home, you have zero control of how much air you're losing to the outside,” she said. “Fresh filtered air is incredibly important for comfort and health.”
Then there’s the envelope — the exterior walls, insulation, weather resistive barrier, windows, siding, and layers that protect everything inside.
“We strongly encourage clients to go all in on the envelope,” she said. “Nobody wants to replace doors and windows. The envelope sets the project up for success.”
Durability. Comfort. Efficiency. Health.
That’s her checklist. That’s the philosophy.
“When people come into a home built with those principles,” she said, “they say it’s the most comfortable home they’ve ever been in. That's the biggest compliment we could ever get.”
Building for the ocean — and for the next hundred winters
The Scarborough home rising from the frozen ground will face wind, salt, sand, storms, and every bit of weather the Atlantic decides to throw at it.
“You name it, this house will have it,” Christi said.
The entire great room will be floor-to-ceiling glass — a 20-foot slider opening to the ocean. Beautiful, yes. But challenging.
“You have to work with structural engineers,” she said, “to make sure that the materials can withstand these harsh elements and the complex nature of the design itself.”
She talks about installing rain screens between the siding and sheathing to allow for proper drying and drainage, about corrosion-resistant window hardware, about elevating the lowest floor of coastal properties even when not required as a future-proofing measure, about the garage doors needing to withstand salty air.
Literally everything must be thought through.
A builder early, not later
There is something else Christi wishes more homeowners knew: the importance of choosing a builder early in the process.
“It’s not uncommon for folks to buy a piece of land, hire an architect, buy a piece of land, and then the builder is an afterthought,” she said. “But the builder is the person you’re going to have the longest relationship with.”
Projects can take years from design to finish. Those relationships matter.
“We look at building someone’s home as a fiduciary responsibility,” she said. “Everybody has a number. It’s my job to keep the project in check.”
She prefers to be in the room from the blank sheet of paper, shaping the design, yes, but also the budget, the expectations, the sequence. “When the whole team is assembled early — architect, builder, mechanical engineer, structural engineer, interior designer, plumber, electrician — you create a shared vision from the start and set your project up for the greatest success,” she said.
A husband-and-wife team that clients trust
Christi and Kurt wake up at 4:30 a.m. and, by her own admission, talk about work “from the first sip of coffee until we go to bed.”
It’s not a job, it’s a shared mission.
They’ve discovered their husband and wife dynamic brings comfort to couples building a home — especially when decisions feel heavy.
Christi brings a complementary energy to Kurt’s technical mindset — a way of grounding couples and helping them find clarity amid hundreds of choices.
“I bring a bit of softness and warmth to that experience,” she said. “It helps couples feel more comfortable as they move through the decisions.”
Sometimes, humor helps.
“We definitely play marriage counselors,” she said, laughing. And Kurt, he sees land the way some people see blueprints. “He can look at a site — trees, rocks, ledge — and say the house has to sit here,” Christi said. “He just knows.”
He also humors her design brainstorms.
“I hand him the drawings and say, make this,” she said. “He’ll ask, ‘How am I supposed to do that?’ And I say, ‘I don’t know — that’s your job.’”
Their balance is noticeable. Clients see it. And they trust it.
The team behind the craft
Proper Modern Home is intentionally small: a tight crew of people who care deeply about the details.
Project manager Bob Emery has been with them more than a decade.
“He’s incredibly organized,” Christi said. “He’s our right hand man.”
Electrician Matt Verrier understands the precision Passive House demands — every hole, every penetration, every wire planned with intention.
There’s Jason Hinkley, an air-sealing specialist and site super, who treats airtightness like a craft. And Dennis George, General Manager/CFO, who handles the numbers few builders want to touch.
Job sites are calm, respectful, collaborative, places where people feel valued.
A third-generation builder — even if she didn’t know it
Christi’s dad, Ray Jacques, spent his life repairing small engines in Biddeford — snow blowers, lawnmowers, but carpentry ran in the family.
Ray’s brother was a builder. His father was a carpenter. The trio helped build many of the old beachfront hotels in Old Orchard Beach.
Christi watched her father finish their family home when she was small, though she admits she was “a girly girl” who did not like getting dirty.
But she absorbed something else from him: patience, precision, and pride in good work.
When she and Kurt built their own Passive House - Inspired home, they asked Ray, now retired, to help. The project quickly became a family effort in a way Christi could not have predicted.
Their son Griffen, who shares her love of math, science, and engineering, stepped right into the work. He tied rebar. He hung sheetrock. He helped with the air sealing. He even built many of the custom built ins with Kurt. A home built by four hands became one built by six, the science and the craft passed forward to another generation.
“He was on that job every day,” she said of her father. “Finish carpentry, framing, everything. He was integral.”
For a man who helped build homes the same way for decades, the new systems could have felt foreign. Instead, he embraced them.
“He completely understood the why,” Christi said. “He was all in on learning.”
Today he still appears on their sites when they need him. “I think that thirst for learning,” she said, “that is probably where I get it.”
Beach evenings, lake days, Fletcher and Fig
Away from work — when that actually happens — Christi finds calm at the beach.
“The beach is my sanctuary,” she said. “We’re evening beach people.”
There’s a camp in northern Maine where they also unplug: fishing, kayaking, paddle boarding, junk food, board games. Only recently did it get cell phone service.
They’re foodies, too — Biddeford restaurants, Portland, Portsmouth, always up for something new.
And then there’s Fig, their English bulldog, beloved by everyone who meets her. “She’s the sweetest thing ever,” Christi said. “I love her.” On warmer days, Fig is a staple on job sites and another member of the team.
What they are really building
The light was fading across the Scarborough lot, and Christi stood beside Kurt the way she has for years. He studied the crisp lines of a fresh foundation. She imagined the life that would unfold inside the walls. This is where their work begins. Not with blueprints. Not with budgets. With understanding.
Christi once wore a lab coat and chased precision in biotech labs. She knows what it means to get every layer right, every sequence correct, every variable accounted for. That same discipline now guides the homes she and Kurt build. Not rigid. Not cold. Just exact in all the ways that matter.
But the science is only half the story. The rest is human.
There is always a moment when a couple walks through their finished home for the first time and grows quiet. Not because they are speechless, but because they recognize something that feels true. The space reflects them. Their routines. Their history. Their hopes for the years ahead.
Christi watches that moment with a calm she earned through long days, long seasons, and long conversations that turned strangers into partners. She knows what it took to get here. Trust. Honesty. Care. Commitment at a level most people never see.
She once built systems that helped diagnose illness. Now she builds places that help people live well.
And couples choose Proper Modern Home not just for comfort, or efficiency, or beauty, but because they want a builder who will stand with them the way Christi and Kurt stand with each other.
Steady. Thoughtful. All in.
The kind of team you want beside you when you are creating the one place in the world that will hold
everything you love.
Many thanks to Christi and Kurt Hissong for their time on Tuesday, December 9, 2025 in Scarborough, Maine.
To learn more about Proper Modern Home, visit their website.
BRICK+TIDES is a weekly digital magazine based in York County, Maine. We share positive and inspiring stories about local businesses, people, and places that make Southern Maine special. If you'd like to read our free weekly email, we'd love for you to subscribe!
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Photos and interview by Cy Cyr. Contact him at info@bricktides.com
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