How much nudging, and how much time, will it take for custom home buyers to fully embrace the goal of sustainability? “I think we’re one generation away from it,” says David Easton, who has devoted his career to building houses out of stabilized earth. The generation that came of age after the oil crisis of the 1970s will be slow to grasp the concept of finite resources, Easton believes. He pins his hopes on the children of the baby boomers “who experienced the first oil crisis, who lost the fantasy of the ’50s that energy would always be cheap.” And energy is only part of the equation. “Durability has to play a role. I think we have to go to the European model, where a house has to function relatively maintenance-free for generations.” But even with the will and the technological means, changing the way we build will require difficult political changes as well. “As long as we subsidize oil and wood products,” he says, “alternatives are not going to be able to compete.”
Before John Abrams discusses sustainability, he likes to offer his interpretation of the term: “If we keep on doing what we’re doing, we can keep on doing what we’re doing.” And by that standard, the Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., builder says, “We’re light years away. We’re going to have to make carbon-neutral houses, neighborhoods, cities and towns, and so on. We’re a long ways from that.” But Abrams has been rolling this stone uphill for a long time, and he is finally seeing the terrain begin to level out. “There was a little blip [of interest in green building] in the 1970s. Since then, it’s ebbed and flowed. But now there’s a feeling that we must do this as well as we can, and we must learn to do it better.” A significant proportion of his clients have long been inclined toward green building. “But now the [architecture and building] professions are pushing hard too. The efforts that I see to do good green buildings—in terms of materials, energy use, and energy production—are improving dramatically year after year.” In any case, Abrams has never waited for client demand to lead his company toward building green. “Some of them are not interested at all,” he says, “but they are happy to have it because it’s part of what we do. It’s just part of a whole spectrum of what makes a good house. Whether the clients are interested or not, it’s just what we do.”
As a design/build firm, Abrams’ company exercises greater control over the direction of its projects than most custom builders. But each of his three colleagues above has also seized the initiative to one degree or another. Having grasped the environmental consequences of their work, they are seeking a more sustainable John Abrams, South Mountain Co., West Tisbury, Mass. way of building. All agree that we are not there yet, and that getting there will not be easy. “It’s truly daunting,” says Abrams, who nevertheless remains optimistic. “We’re pretty resilient as a species. There’s a lot of good that can come of all of this.”
Are your clients ready for a sustainable custom home? Tell the editors of CUSTOM HOME what’s on your mind. Send your comments and questions to Bruce Snider at bsnider@hanleywood.com.
