Friday, November 20, 2009

A Green Home In The Hamptons

By Sheila Cosgrove Baylis

Green luxury in Southampton Village is a reality as the first green home nears completion. Photos by Sheila Cosgrove Baylis

Southampton - The first green custom home in Southampton Village is almost complete and its presence is likely to nourish the newborn eco-trend in Hamptons real-estate. The five-bedroom house, made from recycled materials like wood, diapers, and soda bottles, is an artful answer to the collective grumble over scarce energy resources.

Jerry Rosengarten's decision to build the green home was the answer to a call from his conscience. "The biggest problem we all face is energy," Rosengarten said. "You can't control energy with war. You have to control it with new technologies." Rosengarten's project easily meets Southampton Town's newly-enacted and hotly-debated Green Code.

Rosengarten is not alone in his quest. The Hamptons Green Alliance (HGA) is an association of builders and contractors in the Hamptons organized to promote green building and maintenance practices. HGA provides information on carbon-neutral, zero-energy homes via its website and public forums. One of HGA's founders, Bob Morsch, Vice President and Director of Business Development at Telemark Inc. in Bridgehampton, says he started the organization in order to educate eastern Long Island. "People are very confused about what green is," Morsch said. "Our sole function is to provide information."

Builder Jerry Rosengarten.

In this 5,000-square-foot $4.3 million house, the garage is not large enough to accommodate an SUV, the roof is made from recycled plastic, the wood floor was collected from old barns, the patio bricks were reclaimed from a demolition site, and the floors are heated with efficient radiant heating. Further, the pool is solar heated and filtered with salt, and all of the appliances are Energy Star rated.

But there's no consensus on what constitutes ecologically-conscious living. HGA Co-Founder Frank Dalene, Vice President at Hamptons Luxury Homes and President of Telemark Inc. in Bridgehampton, challenged Southampton Town's new Green Code in Builder and Remodeler magazine's September 2008 issue. Dalene argued that Southampton Town used 15-year-old statistics when creating the code and that "town officials seemed to railroad it through the approval process."

But government regulation isn't necessarily driving the eco-trend. From the Corcoran Group's Eco-Broker Catherine Bedard's perspective the trend is market-driven, and the choice to go green is a moral one. "Here in the Hamptons, people can really afford to do the right thing," Bedard said. "I call it responsible luxury. How dare someone who can afford a 10,000-square-foot house complain about the price of an environmentally sound counter-top or the price of solar [panels]? That seems crazy to me," she said. "A very conscientious person is going to buy this house."

Bedard's passion for green living pushed her to get an Eco-Broker certification even after her colleagues ridiculed her. "When I first started, all the builders and realtors laughed at me," she said. "I've been creating this market for five years," Bedard explained, "and it has just started to take off."