Ecomanor - First LEED Certified Home in the Southeast

A HUGE Thank you to Laura Turner Seydel and Amanda Leesburg for letting us tour Ecomanor today! Two extraordinary women doing amazing work, it was such an honor.

(We are gathering research as we go, including this AJC story, and using the blog in part to collect a lot of material, but more to follow on today -)

'EcoManor' makes an Earth-friendly statement

By ALMA E. HILL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 02/01/07

Laura Turner Seydel is the kind of person who takes medical tests to determine the level of toxic chemicals in her body. She recently tested positive for 36 out of 74 chemicals, a disturbing finding for someone who could be the poster child for the environment.

"I've got rocket fuel in my system," Seydel quips.


Bita Honarvar/AJC Staff
(ENLARGE)
Laura Turner Seydel (seated), wife, mother and daughter of CNN founder and philanthropist Ted Turner, serves on more than 13 environment-related boards. She also is chairwoman of the Captain Planet Foundation, a nonprofit that funds school-based environmental programs. Jillian Pritchard Cooke is president of Des-Syn, an interior design firm with offices in Atlanta and San Francisco that specializes in creating sustainable interiors.


Bita Honarvar/AJC Staff
(ENLARGE)
Eco-Manor, the Seydel's dream home, looks more like a castle, but it's kind to the earth. The house has solar panels on the roof that generate power without polluting the air. The LEED certified home is, perhaps, the most energy efficient house in the state.

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The wife, mother of three and daughter of media mogul Ted Turner is involved with more than a dozen nonprofit groups dedicated to conserving water, preserving natural resources and saving the Earth. She's even co-founder of Captain Planet, a nonprofit foundation that funds environmental programs in schools.

So it was only natural that when Seydel and her husband, Rutherford, an environmental attorney and co-owner of the Thrashers and Hawks, decided to build their dream home, they spared no expense to make it eco-friendly.

"It's really part of walking the talk," says Seydel. "The environment and global warming are the issues I'm most passionate about."

Towering above most of the homes on the block, the Seydels' "EcoManor," as Rutherford Seydel coined it, is more like a castle. But even though the three-level, 5,800-square-foot Tudor makes a big statement in its Buckhead neighborhood, it will have a small impact on Mother Earth.

The home is the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified single-family residence in the Southeast. The U.S. Green Building Council gives residential and commercial buildings that designation for meeting criteria for energy and water efficiency, sustainable materials, indoor environmental quality and innovative design.

EcoManor does that and more.

The five-bedroom, seven-bath home has such amenities as solar roof panels and a gray-water collection system to irrigate the yard. The exterior was made from recycled stone. The roof is reclaimed slate. The home also has Bosch/Thermador energy-efficient appliances, pressed-straw interior doors and lyptus cabinet boxes, floors made from plantation wood, newspaper- and soy-based insulation, solar windows, tankless water heaters and interior wall paint and furniture stains that contain low amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOC). Toilets are filled with rainwater collected in cisterns. The energy-efficient features alone account for about 20 percent, or $200,000, of construction costs.

Building green wasn't easy. The Seydels started by attending various green building seminars across the country. They turned to LEED and Southface Energy Institute in Atlanta for advice. And they assembled a team of green experts to ensure that everything from the shingles to the window treatments and light fixtures were environmentally friendly.

Laura Seydel wanted the finished home to be as stylish as it is environmentally correct, so she hired Jillian Pritchard Cooke, an interior designer who specializes in creating sustainable environments, to oversee the decor.

The Seydels, who have lived in a Buckhead house behind EcoManor for about 17 years, originally planned to move their family — they have three young children — into the new house in June 2006. But the date was pushed back to March because of the difficulty Cooke had in finding eco-sensitive furnishings. They plan to turn their old home into a guesthouse.

"The biggest challenge was overcoming being told something wasn't available," recalls Cooke. "That's when the creative juices really started flowing. We would design it."

The result is a home furnished according to the environmentalist's creed to reuse, reclaim and recycle. "I think it's the most beautiful home I've ever been in," says Laura Seydel. "It's exactly what I hoped it would be. And it smells so good," she adds, referring to the lack of toxins usually present in new homes.

"I think we're going to flourish here."



HOW TO BUY





Places to go




• Eco Bella, Virginia-Highland. Specialty: upscale, eco-friendly clothing and furnishings




• Rugs by Robinson, Atlanta. Specialty: natural, handmade rugs colored with vegetable dye




• Dex Studios, Atlanta. Specialty: custom countertops made with recycled and remnant materials mixed with concrete




• Iron Design, Atlanta. Specialty: custom hand-forged iron, concrete, wood and copper light fixtures, drapery hardware, tables, gates and railings




• Stone Age Designs, Atlanta. Specialty: architectural elements such as fireplace mantels and range hoods made from Scaglila, a blended stone derived from crushed marble, limestone and travertine.




Products




• EcoSpec Paint by Benjamin Moore. A brand with low volatile organic compounds.




• Cellulose insulation. Made from recycled wood fibers that seal the home from outside air infiltration.




• Energy Star seal of approval. Appliances that use less energy for the same performance.






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HOW TO TAME YOUR WASTEFUL WAYS




• Adopt the environmentalist's motto: reduce, reuse and recycle. For example, instead of replacing upholstered furniture, buy slipcovers to give it a new look. Give worn or out-of-date clothing or linens new life: Turn them into a tablecloth, cloth napkins or a shower curtain.




• Do your due diligence before building an energy-efficient home by consulting experts, such as those at Southface Energy Institute. "There's new technology coming on line all the time," says Laura Turner Seydel.




• Attend green building seminars and home shows to develop a list of local resources for materials and supplies.




• Buy only paint that has few or no volatile organic compounds that pollute the air inside your home.




• Look for furnishings made from natural fabrics such as wool, silk, cotton and jute, and furniture built with no formaldahyde-based glue or toxic stains.




• When purchasing household goods, buy quality merchandise that's built to last a long time. "Instead of being on a three-year cycle with something, be on a 10-year cycle," advises designer Jillian Pritchard Cooke.






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ON THE WEB



For more details about EcoManor and tips on how to live an eco-friendly lifestyle, visit . Laura Seydel said the couple created the site "so people wouldn't have to go through what we went through [to build a green home] — which is flying by the seat of our pants."




Also visit http://www.southface.org and http://www.usgbc.org (U.S. Green Building Council)