From a Single House to a Building Movement

What began as a plan to build a single home evolved into a concept to form a partnership in hopes of having broader impacts on the building community and the environment. In a model for economic and environmental progress, Upstate Forever reached out to the area's Homebuilders to extend the idea’s potential. … read more …

Only in looking back can one see that delays often happen for a reason. If we had been able to jump right on our original plan of building a more environmentally friendly house in 2000, that likely would have been the end of the story -- a single house. As it would happen when we resurrected the idea in the early spring of 2003 some other things were in the works that led us to dramatically expand the vision.

On September 16, 2003, Upstate Forever co-sponsored a conference on “Affordable Housing” with the Home Builders Association of Greenville. One of the speakers at the conference was Jim Hackler of Southface Institute in Atlanta, co-sponsor with the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association in the EarthCraft House (www.earthcrafthouse.org) program. We were so impressed with what we learned about a successful green building standard with more than three years of track record that we decided to make a “field trip” to Atlanta to meet with the folks at Southface.

Upstate Forever rented a van and we took an eclectic group to Atlanta for a day. Among the participants were Brad Wyche and Diane Eldridge of the Upstate Forever staff; Scott Johnston of Johnston Design Group; Mitch Harvey of Greer Builders Supply; two Upstate Forever members, Bill & Mary West; Tom Kester of the Upstate Forever Board and Carlton Owen. After meeting with the Southface folks at their offices in Atlanta we visited several residential construction projects with green components. Among them were a number of EarthCraft certified houses of all price ranges from entry-level to a home that Ted Turner’s Captain Planet Foundation built. The latter “had it all” – traditional, solar and geothermal energy; rainwater harvesting systems and the top-of-the-line of everything. In the “small world” category, 'the owner of that home – Sona Chambers – formerly with Captain Planet Foundation later came to work with the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (www.nfwf.org) where I serve as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors.

The Atlanta trip solidified the vision that EarthCraft House provided the perfect building concept for Upstate House. Too, the fact that it followed close on the heels of the first joint-effort between Upstate Forever and the Home Builders Association of Greenville (HBAG) offered another opportunity. What if we could get the Home Builders to partner in Upstate House? Could we also get them on-board for the broader EarthCraft House concept?

We quickly followed our Atlanta visit with a call and visit to Eston Rodgers, HBAG’s CEO. Eston was very supportive of the idea of pitching the Upstate House/EarthCraft House concept to his Executive Committee and Board of Directors. After a number of “staff-to-staff” meetings, Eston arranged for Carlton Owen to meet with the HBAG Board of Directors in December of 2003. Owen’s presentation entitled, “Reaching New Markets Through Environmentally Sensitive Building: Doing Well by Doing Good,” pointed to the potential for all involved -- conservationists as well as business interests – to gain from cooperation. That session followed by many months of meetings and a “road trip” by some of the homebuilders to meet with their peers in Atlanta, finally led to HBAG and Upstate Forever signing a partnership agreement. This time, there would be formal participation in Upstate House with financial gains – the difference between what the Owen’s would pay for the completed house and the value of donations of materials and services going 40% to support the general purposes of Upstate Forever and 60% being used as an education/promotion fund for the EarthCraft House standard in the Upstate.

This unlikely partnership – a non-profit group promoting sensible growth & protection of special places and a local homebuilders association – offers perhaps the greatest hope for addressing the myriad of environmental challenges facing our global society. The potential is unlimited when diverse interests team to address common issues.