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Going Green Goes Upscale: The Furman Cliffs Cottage

By Ben Ray • Published June 25th, 2008 • Further Reading  

Furman University, Southern Living, and Duke Energy have come together to show that living a sustainable lifestyle may mean giving up less luxury than you think.

This 3,400 square foot showcase home, which can be called nothing but magnificent, was built with one mission in mind: cram as much environmentally friendly technology into one house as possible, and make it look great in the process. A normal home may have a single solar array, but the team behind the Furman Cliffs Cottage didn’t want to limit themselves to a conventional setup on the roof of the home. In an effort to inspire solar integration with design, there are over three times the conventional array square footage, on the roof, integrated into a trellis, and even serving as the centerpiece of the organic gardens.

A solar trellisAnd that’s not all– there’s also a geothermal power system buried beneath the formal garden, and the home features Gridpoint Connect, which may be best described as a server for your home power needs–not only does the appliance feature a high-capacity battery, but it also manages the power consumption of your home, notifying you of appliances with the highest draws, and eliminating the “phantom power” that drives most household usage in this country from “high” to “Robert Downey Jr circa 2000.”

Energy efficiency isn’t all at the LEED-certified home, however. The entire project was undertaken with the most-often-overlooked of environmental mantras: buy local. The stone in the structure is from Micaville, North Carolina, meaning it only traveled 90 miles to reach the construction site, and the treated wood beams are Southern Yellow Pine, which was selected specifically because of its availability on a local level. Maybe the best feature in the construction, however, is the roof and the flooring: the shingles, also made of pine, are warrantied 50 years while the trees that they come from will replenish themselves in 30. The floor? It’s bamboo, and will completely regenerate in 10.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out the furnishings in this home are all “sustainable” as well; the furniture is, of course, locally sourced, although with the industry in North Carolina suffering dramatically over the last 20 years, that in some cases mean it came from as far as New England. While that’s not quite the leap we’re looking for, it’s still far better than the average American household–think for a moment about the carbon involved in getting goods here from China to stock up your local Target, Pier One, or Ikea, and you’ll get the picture quickly. The end product is a home that’s beyond both compare and reproach, and worth imitating every chance one gets.

Read More:

Furman Cliffs Cottage (Official Site)
Meet The Team (Southern Living)
Southern Living’s First Green Showcase Home (Furman University Press Release)
Cliffs Cottage Showcases Green Living (Greenville News)

  • eddiepetosa
    So the future looks good for ecologists. We will have a dedicated server that will let us know what appliance isn't behaving and is consuming more energy than it should. Perhaps that same server will make me toast in the morning...
  • It's about time more people pay more importance to using green energy to conserve energy and produce alternative energy. Maybe Mr. Obama should give start offering incentives to family using solar panels or other forms of green products that can help reduce electricity bills and reduce the dependence on electricity. Countries in Asia are already doing that and the Singapore government has done that also to help poor families.
  • E. D. Bud Moon
    We went to see this awsome house with 3 other couples. We were awed by everything that we saw. We saw green ideas that we did not know existed. We thoroughly enjoyed our tour. E. D. Bud Moon
  • Yeah--that did jump out at me, but then again, the point of this was to be a demo home, showcasing every environmental technology that it possibly could. In that respect, it's understandable that it's large. I am kind of afraid that it'll inspire a boom of green McMansions.

    Then again, that's still far better than non-green McMansions =)
  • It's so big though! which kinda defeats the point of green building I feel.
  • Hello there,

    I'm a distributor of bamboo flooring in Singapore. Was quite surprised to hear that bamboo flooring could be sourced locally in USA.

    As far as I know, most bamboo flooring is made in China (ours included). Would you have any more details about their supplier?

    Also, bamboo can fully regenerate in 4 to 6 years, that's about half the 10 years mentioned in your article.

    Cheers
    Hun Boon
  • Bamboo does grow here in the U.S. -- about 60 varieties, most originally sourced from China. I noticed this link on the topic:

    http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/bamboo.html

    And you're right: it grows quickly. I'm looking at a 30-foot stand in my neighbor's yard right now. Most of it was destroyed during Hurricane Ivan. That was three years ago. Amazing.

    Perhaps Ben has info on where that project's bamboo was sourced.
  • This project is proof positive that energy utilities can be pressured peaceably but persistently to change their ways. For years, the environmental community told Duke Energy that it had to clean up its act and it turned a deaf ear. Yet, we persisted. Now, look at the results!
  • I don't know if I'd call Duke Energy completely won over yet--their Ohio-Kentucky chair recently told a conference that their "cathedral strategy" here was all nukes and clean coal--but this is definitely the sort of progress that is most encouraging. The fight won't be won by crushing the energy giants, it'll be won by co-opting them.

    Not that I don't WANT to crush them, of course. But this seems like a much better solution.
  • With friends like Duke Energy, who needs enemies? I'm right there with you. However, as you so rightly put it, this battle won't be won by crushing the utilities, no matter how tempting (from an environmental perspective) such a proposition may be.

    Through my work in the Sierra Club, I've become friends with two executives in the Florida division of Progress Energy, an equal opportunity coal and nuclear proponent. These friends of mine are good people trying to turn the titanic with an oar. We must work from the inside out, which is why I accepted Progress Energy's offer to install extra energy monitoring equipment in my home after the installation of my solar water heater. My energy profile is quite different from that of my neighbors but every day I'm contributing a tiny bit to the solution. Who can argue with that?
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