In the News
Green, in name and design
Back in 1969, when Terry Green was still cleaning up from the “muddy mess” he encountered at the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, he was becoming interested in the ecology.
Around that time, he was reading about counterculture lifestyle practices in the Whole Earth Catalog. And, while an architecture student at the University of Florida, he wrote his thesis on self-sustainable community design.
So it follows, especially given his surname, that he has built a green house in Sarasota’s Museum District, on Bay Shore Road. Built on speculation, the 3,600-square-foot house recently won several awards for its design.
“‘Green’ is not that new of a thing for me,” said the architect. “I did a solar-passive home in 1980 in North Carolina. I was using radiant barriers in the 1980s in houses in Sarasota. My thesis in college was on an alternative-lifestyle community. We didn’t use the word ‘green’ then, but it was a project that was self-sustainable, with rammed-earth walls and geodesic domes, that kind of thing.”
That was in the late 1960s and early ’70s, during “the whole hippie movement,” said Green, “and people started thinking about how fragile the earth was. The Whole Earth Catalog was a book that had all those alternative lifestyle practices.”
“Ecology,” not “sustainability” or “green,” was the key word back then. “Ecologically sound practices ... it has always been my nature,” said Green.
“In 1994, I went to Costa Rica, and, for my sister, we built a house there totally off the grid, because we had to. There wasn’t electricity there, so we put a 12-volt electrical system on the roof. We had a solar water heater. We designed a house that had porches on three sides — 9-foot decks with overhangs like you find here” in the Bay Shore Road house.
“It was all made from wood that we harvested from the property. We cut down two trees ... that had about a 7- or 8-foot diameter. We took them to a local mill and they cut enough wood to build the whole house. From just two trees. The house had a cupola on top to let the hot air out, and all the windows opened up, and the glass doors, made on site.”
So the soft-spoken architect has been living up to his name for a long time.
“Born to be green, right?” he said, downplaying the notion. “I don’t know ... fortuitous thing.”
Tropical inspiration
Green said the design of his Bay Shore Road house, which won three Aurora Awards at the Southeast Building Conference in Orlando this summer, is informed by the indigenous architecture of Bali.
He is not the first local developer to be inspired by the Indonesian resort island. In 1939, Phil Hiss spent a year on Bali and studied its homes. He wrote a book about the experience, and brought his love of Balinese design to Sarasota when he moved here in 1948 and developed Lido Shores.
Hiss hired the architects of the Sarasota school movement to create houses that, like those in Bali, integrated interior and exterior spaces and took advantage of the climate.
More than 50 years later, in designing and developing his Bay Shore house, Green has put the same principles into action, although he wasn’t aware of Hiss’ connection to Bali.
“I was familiar with the architecture, but saw articles about Bali and got excited,” said Green. Five years ago, he and his wife visited the island.
“I was inspired by how fitting that architecture is to our environment here,” said Green. “Especially the strong interface between exteriors and interiors. As you can see in this house, all the major rooms open up to the patio area. We have two waterfalls; at night it is really dramatic.”
In the Balinese tradition, the house is zoned by usage. The garage is a separate building, as is the guest house and gazebo, which is wired and plumbed for use as an outdoor kitchen. In the main structure, the living areas and kitchen are on one side of the house, the bedrooms on the other.
“One of the things about Balinese architecture is each residence is in a compound, and within that compound is a series of pavilions,” said Green. “Each pavilion is devoted to a different activity. So you have a religious pavilion, a dining pavilion, a sleeping pavilion, a guest area. It is all based on function. For instance, this is an outdoor kitchen that is plumbed for gas and electric. The guest suite is separate, and the three-car garage is detached to keep the noxious fumes out of the house.”
With big overhangs, large balconies and landscaping on the east and west sides of the house providing shade, the house, constructed by Sarasota custom-home builder Rich Hinton, can be opened up for cross-ventilation.
“It’s got the big three items,” said Green. “It’s a healthy house, it’s an efficient house, and it’s safe.” (See box for a list of the house’s green features.)
Architectural drama is created by the use of massive wooden posts, both at the entry and supporting the bedrooms’ balconies.
“Terry did a really good job with the design,” said Hinton. “It’s unusual; no one’s got one like it. It was fun to build.”
The home is for sale at $1,990,000 through Realtor Carla Rayman of Prudential Palms Realty.
The house, at 4948 Bay Shore Road, will be open for tours from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Matt Ross and Mike Evans of Eco-$mart will give a seminar on green building at 1 p.m.
