"Buyers wanting to upgrade to a new home but who are concerned about the subsequent tax increase should consider renovating existing homes. These buyers can reduce their environmental footprint and gain substantial long-term tax savings. Sarasota is ripe with renovation opportunities.”

-Grant Castilow

Wanting Not to Waste

Sarasota Herald Tribune | April 8, 2007

Having spent his first career in waste management, Steve Ellis wasn't about to trash a 1,000-square-foot house at 1876 Goldenrod St. Sure, other developers might have considered it a tear-down and sent it off to the landfill in metal boxes -- another 200 or so cubic yards of concrete, wood and plaster for the ever-growing pile that is yesterday's Sarasota.

But Ellis and his business partner, Grant Castilow, knew that would not be the green thing to do. So instead, through their company, MyGreenBuildings, they renovated the rock-solid old house to green standards and added 1,100 square feet to it. In the process, they minimized the amount of waste through recycling and created a house that rates, pending confirmation from the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC), as the second-greenest in Florida.

"It paints the picture that taking an existing (house) and renovating it could actually get you a greener house than building new," said Drew Smith of Two Trails Inc., who performs third-party certifications of houses for the FGBC. One reason for that is saving the "embedded energy" -- the harvesting, manufacturing, distributing and constructing -- that it took to build the original house decades ago.

With features that include soy-based attic insulation, hot-water recirculation equipment and high-efficiency air-conditioning, the house scored 303 on the FGBC scale of 400. Only a model house built by WCI Communities in Venetian Golf and River Club has scored higher, in the 320s, said Smith.

Ellis had no idea the house, completed in March, would score that high when MyGreenBuildings was profiled in the Herald-Tribune's business section in November. But after just three months of construction, the numbers came back surprisingly good, said Ellis.

"That just blows me away," he said. "I totally did not expect that. It's just these extra little things we did, and it's not like it took us a lot of time. This whole entire job, we finished in three months. Our subs may have been crawling all over each other, but they loved it, they were psyched about the work and felt like they were part of something a little bit different."

They could hardly have felt otherwise, considering the Goldenrod property was posted with a prominent sign that read: "This jobsite is designated GREEN. Minimal impact to the environment. Construction & demolition waste diversion. Reduce, reuse or recycle. Recycling bins for all metals, plastic, concrete, lumber."

"They did a phenomenal job of taking an existing house and reuse materials ... and come out with a product that is probably far superior," said Smith.

The look of green

At a recent seminar on green building at Selby Gardens, Ellis asked his audience, "What does a green house look like?" The answer, he told them: "A green house really doesn't look like anything other than a house that's as nice as you want it to look."

The house's open floor plan, which seamlessly integrates with three private outdoor spaces, is testament to Ellis' belief that a luxury lifestyle can be sensibly lived in a modestly sized space.

"Not only can you have a super-efficient home, as green as it gets, but also you can live really well," said Ellis. "It doesn't have to have this massive profile. It doesn't have to be 5,000 square feet.

"Most people don't have that conception (when touring the Goldenrod house), because it lives bigger than 2,100 square feet," he added. "You incorporate the outdoors in a way that makes sense. You don't have to start from scratch and scrape the house."

Ellis paid $430,000 for the house and lot, which is in the prestigious "flower streets" neighborhood west of the Tamiami Trail. The property is on the market at $815,000, or about $388 per square foot of air-conditioned space.

He's in it to make a profit.

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