When Mike and Dona Pohl put a contract on
a Somerset home under construction—within
just days of being introduced to Alys Beach
by a friend—they weren’t thinking about
green, sustainable building practices or owning
a home that epitomizes an environmentally
friendly way of life. They just knew they loved
the community, the beauty of the design, and
the luxurious amenities. The Pohls especially
loved that their lot sat neatly between Caliza
Pool and Zuma, the new, state-of-the-art
fitness center set to open early next year.
As it turned out, though, their home—even in
Alys Beach, a town where employing sustainable
building practices has been part of its mission
from the very beginning—may have set a new
standard in green building.
Pattie Glenn, who started her company,
GreenSmart, Inc., in 1999 in part to provide
consulting for green building certification,
says the majority of homes built by Alys Beach
Construction meet the standard for a platinum
rating, the highest rating given by the Florida
Green Building Coalition (FGBC). But with
the Pohls’ home, she noticed that Culley
Blackstock, a superintendent with Alys Beach
Construction, was going above and beyond to
score even higher on the FGBC Green Home
Designation Standard. “All of these homes
show an extended commitment to green
building, but Blackstock said, ‘I want to go the
extra mile.’ So his willingness to scrutinize every
point proved beyond exemplary, a commitment
they’ve met in this house.”
Blackstock says it was a team effort starting
with the project manager on the Pohl residence,
David Lamon, as well as other Alys Beach
Construction teammates, the architect, the
subcontractors, and Glenn. “We’re learning a
lot more on every build to make them better,
stronger, greener, and more efficient,” he says. “I
think with this project, we had a collaboration
of what everybody’s been building upon,
and now it got to the point where…if we do
it all together, we can blow this thing out of
the park.”
Architect Jason Dunham of Jason R. Dunham
Architecture & Urban Design, who designed
the Pohls’ home, says this project stands out
for an effort on everyone’s part to employ a
combination of the founding green principles
of Alys Beach that are embedded in its code.
A lot of those principles, he says, represent
a return to classic building methods that
for years builders had gotten away from.
“Alys Beach, the designers and the architects,
tend to be more interested in what we call the
‘original’ green building,” Dunham says. To
begin with, it means building with concrete
and stucco, creating thick masonry walls that
help insulate houses from the summer heat
and reduce cooling costs. The Pohls have
a courtyard home, which allows for more
windows and doors opening out into the open
center to allow more natural light into the house
and create better air flow. In addition, Dunham
designed a two-story porch in the courtyard
that runs the full length, allowing every room
downstairs to open up to the porch, so people
can relax under the shade of the porch above
it. The upstairs bedrooms open out to its own
ample porch area high enough to provide a
view of the town.
“All the building materials are natural
materials that have been around forever—
wood, concrete, and stucco,” Dunham adds.
“You can get them locally, and any craftsman
can work with them, so you don’t need
machines to produce, install, or repair them.
That makes it sustainable because you don’t
have to replace as many pieces over the lifespan
of the home. And when you build things to
last with timeless design that people love, you
have a home that lasts. A house that doesn’t get
torn down is the most sustainable building.”
All of that helps build the foundation for
sustainability that has remained a core principle
of the town planners and the community itself.
On top of that, in the Pohls’ home—which
officially received its platinum certificate back
in February—Blackstock included a number
of new products and technologies to make
the home as energy efficient as possible. These
included an air conditioning system with 18
SEER performance, MERV 8 green filters
that improve air circulation, stainless steel
hoses that are more efficient, high-efficiency
regulators for controlling the stove and gas
grills, or even simple, indoor access to the valve
that cuts off the water—which Blackstock
says will be compatible with new technologies
coming out that alert homeowners of a leaky
faucet and let them shut it off remotely from
their smart phone.
Glenn adds that the swimming-pool contractor
even made a point of installing the first-known
Energy Star-rated swimming pool pump and
motor. “It’s the first of its kind,” she says,
“so much so that the rating doesn’t even have
a blank for it. I submitted it for innovative
points, because it’s a huge thing. That’s what
it takes—an exemplary commitment by the
whole team, working together to achieve the
highest good.” So far the home has received the
highest score for a luxury home in the state of
Florida for 2018, well above what’s required to
meet platinum certification.
It’s a high honor, and any publicity that comes
from it will likely inspire builders throughout
the region to learn from the project and
embrace high standards in green building.
But she adds that its green features also have
a lot of added value for the homeowner. “My
company, GreenSmart, says that a certified
green home saves you money, energy, health,
water, and planet Earth,” Glenn says. “And
green building can be every bit as luxurious
as any competitive design. There need not be
any compromise in design, satisfaction, joy,
and peace, to strike a timeless chord in you
in living in this home. And then it’s validated
by lower energy bills and the peace of mind
that people have knowing there’s been an extra
special attention given to those things that are
kind to our Earth.”
