Shades of Green
BY MARK VANDERHOFFGreen building is going big.
Environmentally responsible building was once considered the purview of a fringe element — intentional communities with high ideals and rustic sensibilities — or, more recently, a trend with individual luxury homes.
But this is an idea whose time has come; environmentally friendly construction is now being applied on a larger scale to high-end communities in Western North Carolina, and prospective homeowners are being offered the opportunity to engage a larger vision without significantly compromising the lifestyle they enjoy.
The benchmark for this pragmatic “middle ground” is in certified NC HealthyBuilt homes. Certified homes are required to meet specific criteria for green, eco-building such as active and passive solar, geothermal, energy star appliances, non-toxic applications, environmentally sensitive placements and materials.
Several years ago, mainstream developers began to embrace “preservation community” concepts that set aside undeveloped land for the benefit of the residents. They were slower to adopt green building principles, however, leaving that to smaller, independent builders.
But Gaia principles have gradually crept onto the drawing board of several local developments, with proponents that range from visionary entrepreneurs to one of the most well-established and respected names in the region. One thing is clear — Eco-building is no longer the fringe; it is the vanguard.
“I have been really surprised and impressed by the number of upscale communities in the area that are encouraging green building,” says Maggie Leslie, program director at the Western North Carolina Green Building Council. “I am relieved that developers are no longer scared to be associated with ‘green’ but instead are doing what they can to be a part of it,” she adds.
Nine communities in all have announced plans to at least promote green building in their new developments and while most are in the planning stages, at least two have broken ground and have units near completion.
One, The Reserve at River Run, requires every house to be an NC HealthyBuilt Home. The other, The Ramble, puts the weight of the Biltmore name behind the statewide program by encouraging green building and paying the certification costs for the builders who comply.
The idea for the Reserve at River Run began when Drs. Jeffrey and Basha Kaplan, searching for a homesite for their own green-built home, were shown a substantial parcel of land in Marshall, overlooking the French Broad River and adjoining a 54-acre nature conservancy.
Although the couple had no previous experience in real estate development, they decided to put their principles into action, assembling a development team of green building professionals to assist them in creating a plan for an “eco-chic” boutique community.
The plan clusters seven homesites on 16 acres, with the surrounding area set aside for a nature sanctuary, astronomy center, labyrinth, gardens and trails. Agreements with neighboring property owners have preserved more greenspace and opened the possibility for a second phase of construction.
Homesites are situated to provide privacy, spectacular views and the southern exposures that are optimal for passive and active solar heating. Cisterns will be required for all homes, to provide supplementary drip irrigation for the xeriscaped, native plantings on the properties and encourage water conservation. The community will rely on an electrical cooperative and solar power for their energy needs.
The Kaplan’s home, currently under construction, serves as the benchmark for the environmental principles of the community. Engineered to NC HealthyBuilt “Gold Status” standards, it will utilize compact fluorescent lighting, geothermal heating and cooling and an on-demand hot water system with hot water loop. Through forward-thinking design, they anticipate low impact and high efficiency. “We believe that we will have virtually no utility bills,” says Jeffrey Kaplan. “In fact, we may end up selling electricity back to the utility company.”
The use of low VOC (volatile organic compound), limited out-gassing paints and sustainable materials throughout their residence will not compromise its aesthetic value and comfort factor. “We want to demonstrate that you can be environmentally conscious and sophisticated,” Kaplan explains.
The Ramble, while somewhat less strict in its requirements, is far more extensive in its scope, covering 1,000 acres on land that was once part of the Biltmore Estate. Its developer, Biltmore Farms, will obtain the NC HealthyBuilt Home certification for every home it builds, and although the company won’t require the designation for homes built by outside developers, it has offered to pay the certification costs as an incentive.
There has been a learning curve, says Bill de Bruin, director of product development for Biltmore Farms. Because many environmentally friendly construction products and methods are not as common as their traditional counterparts, they still carry a higher cost. Balancing those costs with their benefits can be tricky, he said.
Many sub-contractors are also initially skeptical or unfamiliar with those products and methods. “There’s a challenge,” de Bruin says. “It takes sitting with every one of them and explaining what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”
In the end result, de Bruin notes, green building benefits consumers in the long term by saving them money on their energy costs. Biltmore Farms is also getting a head start on the new direction the home building market is taking. “It’s an investment up front as a company,” de Bruin says. “We see it paying off down the road.”
In addition to advocating green building, Biltmore Farms has also incorporated other modern, environmentally friendly development techniques, says Amy Fahmy, a horticulturalist for Biltmore Farms who has worked on The Ramble.
The design of The Ramble uses “preservation development” principles, which blend the development into the forested land on the southern edge of the Biltmore Estate. Roads and homesites have been carefully planned to minimize disturbance and erosion, undisturbed land has been set aside for wildlife habitat, and 80 percent native landscaping is required on the properties to keep the area as natural as possible.
Historically speaking, The Ramble’s pledge to green building may rival George Vanderbilt’s support for responsible land management with his school of forestry, or his commitment to local community when he constructed the Biltmore Village.
“I think The Ramble has brought a lot of credibility to green building trends in the area,” says Leslie, of the WNC Green Building Council. “Once they began to embrace and encourage the HealthyBuilt Homes program, we began to see other builders and developers do the same.”
Thanks to this eco-conscious approach by both large and small scale developers, responsible building is shifting from the margins to the mainstream — bringing homeowners into the fold and laying the foundations for living lightly, and well, on the land. It’s going to be big.
