The 2021 Solar Decathlon house entry for the University of Colorado Boulder being built in Fraser, CO. Without a well-timed bit of eavesdropping, Hannah Blake and Gabi Abello may have never built a home in Fraser, Colo., a mountain town just a few miles from the Winter Park Ski Area. The moment came as the pair toured a traveling village from the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon in 2018. The competition challenges college students to build solar-powered houses. Inside the first building, the University of Colorado Boulder sophomores wondered aloud why no one from their school had organized a team. Kristen Taddonio and Joe Smyth, a young couple from Fraser, overheard the students talking. It had always been their dream to live in a solar decathlon home.