Green Dream
Westchester Magazine's collaboration with Murphy Brothers Contracting, area designers, and vendors resulted in not only a dream home, but a green one.
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Paint has gone green, too. According to Patti Seymour and Robert Piciulli of Decorative Faux Finishes, the DreamHome’s pantry walls are covered in a sandstone finish made with crushed walnut shells that impart a beige, textured appearance. In the kitchen, Seymour says, “We put the sandstone underneath to create this organic looking texture and then went over it with subsequent layers of LusterStone in sparkling silver and taupe. It makes for a pretty and interesting wall–and all the materials are green and environmentally safe.”
Paints with low VOCs (volatile organic compounds) were used throughout the DreamHome, adding a striking red accent wall in the family room and creating a Venetian plaster treatment in the living room. As Hochstin points out, “We were able to accomplish this elegant and sophisticated style with a paint that’s ‘green.’” Yet another way to be eco-friendly is to use paints made of natural products, such as the light-brown-colored clay used on the walls of the upstairs laundry room.
High-end appliance brands have joined the green team as well. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the DreamHome kitchen, in which an oversized SubZero refrigerator is hidden behind deep-red acrylic panels with gold, hand-painted Chinese stencils. Not only does this eye-catching furnishing set the Asian-inspired tone as well as the color scheme for the first floor, it’s also an Energy Star-rated appliance (along with the Wolf dual-fuel range and the Miele dishwasher).
Plumbing fixtures are also on the list of items that can be eco-friendly. A look inside the DreamHome’s marble master bathroom reveals polished nickel fixtures on the “his and her” sinks, bathtub, and glass-encased shower featuring two shower heads, one straight and one angled outward to simulate the experience of standing in the rain. Even here, in the lap of luxury, the green theme is kept alive by utilizing water-saving shower heads and fixtures. In the cabana bathroom on the lower level, the shower head has a special technology that allows air to be sucked into each drop of water; when droplets hit the body, they get absorbed rather than roll off.
Doors and windows are also key elements to green design. Not only does the DreamHome’s mahogany front door have Low-E (low emissivity) glass with argon, so do all the exterior doors and windows, making the house more energy-efficient by keeping warm air in during the winter months and out during the summer. Keeping in line with the Arts & Crafts style of the home, designed by Mount Kisco architect R. Barry Goewey, the windows have been enhanced with geometrically shaped grills reflecting American Craftsman design. The green elements continue down to the hardware on the doors, many with handles made of 90- to 95-percent recycled bronze.
New technologies have rolled in an ever-widening array of eco-friendly products, even in places where you would never expect them. No one looking at the upstairs laundry-room counters would ever suspect that they were made of recycled paper. “It’s compressed and polished so that it looks smooth and clean, just like Corian,” Murphy says. “It looks like brown leather.” Also in the laundry room are white, black, and gray laundry baskets made out of 100-percent repurposed newspaper. If that’s not enough to excite you, then how about the lawn chairs out by the pool? They’re made from recycled plastic bottles!
When it comes to green, the outside of the house can be just as important as the interior. On the two-acre DreamHome site, Murphy Brothers used stones found on the site to create 90 percent of all the retaining and decorative walls on the grounds, and the garden design incorporates both native and sustainable plantings.
Landscape architect Jay Archer of John Jay Landscape Development says his goal was to “create a low-impact, high-performance landscape.” He selected a wide array of native plants such as white-flowering viburnum and pink-flowering clethra as well as sparkleberries and blueberries (which are both edible). According to Archer, these native plants attract beneficial wildlife such as birds, butterflies, and other insects, which are healthy for the local ecosystem. In addition, sustainable plantings such as weeping cherry trees, boxwoods, and spirea were chosen because “they are not susceptible to insects and disease, so they preclude the need for insecticides that release toxins into the environment,” Archer says.
Not only is the DreamHome green in all the design elements you can see inside and out, it’s also green behind the scenes. The certified-gold (by the National Association of Home Builders National Green Building Program) home features energy-efficient elements that range from something so simple as dimmer switches to state-of-the-art technologies such as a geothermal heating/cooling system and closed-cell spray insulation.
“Green really is starting to creep into the design world, so that now it’s a standard that has to be integrated into whatever you’re doing, whether it’s paint, flooring, fabrics, wall coverings, or even adding on a room or building a house,” says Hochstin. “There can be a real integration of great design and eco-friendly resources. It might not be standard yet, but I think we are definitely going in that direction.”
Laura Mogil is a freelance writer residing in Briarlcliff Manor. She frequently writes about art and design for Westchester Magazine, Westchester Home and The New York Times.
