Dream green landscape rises from disaster
5 May, 2009 By: Ron Hall LM Direct!JACKSONVILLE, FL – Used red bricks teeter — in fact, several of the belt-high stacks are teetering precariously. They dot the southeast corner of the sandy half-acre lot. On the northeast and narrower end of the property, which is shaped somewhat like an imperfectly cut piece of pie, is a 4.5-ft.-high, mounded pile of broken up wallboard, which is adjacent to an equally large mound of mangled asphalt shingles.
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From left, Ron Hall, Rick Anderson, Kevin Songer, Steve Sadler and Michaela |
Nearby, nearer the center of the construction zone, is a massive pile of shredded, tan cyprus wood giving off just a hint of a sweet, woodsy aroma in the afternoon heat, which is much appreciated — as is the cooling breeze from the nearby Arlington River.
This is hardly Villa Paraiso (home of paradise). Not yet. But by summer’s end, it will be — and it will also be the greenest home with the greenest landscape in northeast Florida. Right now this future home of husband and wife Steve Sadler and Michaela Miller is very much a work in progress.
On Monday, May 4, the day that I visited, the only hint of their dream home here — apart from the 8,000 stacked bricks and piles of rubble — was 33 augured holes in the ground awaiting steel pylons that will signal the construction of the new home’s skeleton.
Once that happens, things will move fast, Sadler assures me. The couple wants to be in their home by the end of summer.
The debris heaped in piles on the property is the only remaining evidence of the 50-year-old brick-and-stick house that used to grace this riverside piece of property on the confluence of the Arlington and St. Johns Rivers, with its stunning view of downtown Jacksonville.
“It’s a wonderful location to watch fireworks,” comments Miller, motioning toward the city skyline. “Everybody wants to visit when there’s fireworks.”
Tropical Storm Faye damaged the former home here so badly this past Aug. 22 it had to be demolished. But none of the building rubble on the property is going to a landfill. Not a smidgen. It’s being recycled back into the property — some of it into the new home, but most of it into the soil and into the sustainable landscape.
Miller and Sadler's future home here will be certified as the first LEED Platinum home in northeast Florida. LEED stands for Leadership in Environmental Efficiency Design, the systems rating system that is transforming and driving the building industry to ever-increasing levels of energy and resource efficiency. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) administers LEED.
“When Steve sets his mind to doing something, it gets done,” says Kevin Songer, MetroVerde Landcaping, who dropped by the site to explain the green components of the landscape. Everything including a living roof, a green wall, and the plant life, apart from the organic vegetable garden on the property's sunnier east boundary, which will be native and historical heritage plants.
“Kevin has incredible passion for what he does. He’s constantly inspiring us with new ideas,” says Miller as the small group of us, which also includes Rick Anderson, the roofing professional, look over architectural drawings of the project.
“We love it here and we want to preserve the environment here,” she adds. “Steve and I are members of the St. Johns Riverkeeper, and the last thing we want to do is pollute or cause any harm to the river.”
To that end, the couple, working with Songer, has agreed upon a landscape consisting entirely of native and regional heritage plants that do not require irrigation (or very minimal amounts from water collected on site, anyway) and no chemical inputs for the property. There will be no turfgrass because Sadler says he doesn’t want to own a mower or mow.
The editors of Landscape Management will be following the progress of this project with periodic reports at landscapemanagement.net, but you can learn more about it by visiting builttotallygreen.com, a Web site dedicated exclusively to the greening of Villa Paraiso.
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