Green, Glorious Green!
Janice Randall Rohlf
Editor
I’d like to make a motion that the first day of spring be celebrated with as much fanfare as the Hallmark holidays we’re brainwashed into thinking are important. Landing on March 20, the vernal equinox occurs following the longest stretch of dispiriting weather all year, at least that’s the case in New England. Even if you love snow (I do) and are passionate about skiing (I am), by the third month of the year, it’s time for a change, time to celebrate what’s fresh and new — and green!
In this issue, we tip our hats to design professionals who promote green living, either literally —landscapers and gardeners — or figuratively, as in ecologically minded architects and builders. Often, they come as a package since, logically, if you build a sustainable house, you want the land it’s perched on to be treated with environmental sensitivity as well.
“The most sustainable way to build, is to build well once,” Amanda Weglinski of Bensonwood Design Group said to me when I interviewed her for the story “Simple Pleasures.” This rallying cry, echoed by others in the green building community, sums up the importance of sustainable building practices in just a few words. Bensonwood’s clients for the house in Hanover, longtime proponents of a no-waste lifestyle, were attracted to the panelized construction Bensonwood offers.
Also eager to minimize their house’s carbon footprint, Mark Barer and Shanna Shulman built a vacation home on Lake Waukewan enlisting A-W Architects, HausWorks, specialists in energy-efficient building projects, and Ecocor, which makes prefabricated passive house panels for custom designs. Disturbing nature as little as possible was important to them. “Living here is like being in the trees,” says Barer. “When we started, we knew we didn’t want to dominate nature but wanted to live with it in a harmonious way.”
In Chesterfield, Robin and Larry Turnbaugh know all about being good custodians of the land, specifically their three-acre property on a bluff looking east over Spofford Lake toward Mount Monadnock. Guided by garden designer Gordon Hayward, the couple has turned their land into a variety of garden “rooms,” using native plants as much as possible.
On the Turnbaugh’s property, there is outdoor interest in all four seasons, but, like a lot of us, the Turnbaughs eagerly await the arrival of spring. “It really is my favorite time of year,” says Robin. We couldn’t agree more!
