|
|
 |
|
 |
| Sarah Jackson / The Herald (click to enlarge)
|
| The Highlands at Langley cottages feature Shaker-style cabinets. |
| |
ADVERTISEMENT
|
| |
|
Eating chocolate, building green on Whidbey Island
Posted
at
11:21 am
by Sarah Jackson
I went to Whidbey Island yesterday to meet George Brunjes, an up-and-coming chocolatier, who creates amazing confections for his Freeland-based business, Chocolates by George!
Though I was there for that lovely little Easter-inspired story — set to hit The Herald’s Good Life section on April 1 — I also had a chance to tour The Highlands at Langley.
Set on 14 acres just outside Langley, it’s a cutting-edge eco-friendly housing development, one of the first in the state to meet the Puget Sound Partnership’s Low-Impact Development Guidelines.
Though there are only about 10 homes up now — and only a few occupied so far — it’s easy to see that is not a typical “development.”
Most of the homes are modestly sized, typically about 1,400 square feet, and they sit on smaller lots in a “new urbanist style” of cluster housing, with an emphasis on creating community through shared spaces.
Local award-winning architect Ross Chapin is the man behind many of the development’s home designs, including eight Craftsman-esque cottages, all clustered around a green swath of shared lawn.
In the model cottage I toured, upgrades were spent not on granite kitchen counters, but on energy-saving appliances, dual-flush toilets and low-VOC paints.
Green can be affordable, said Nancy Bartlett, who gave me a tour of the evergreen-enclosed development, which is expected to include 52 homes in all.
Cottages in the Snowberry Close section of the development start at $460,000, plus neighborhood association dues.
Anyone can visit the development from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 21 at an open house, featuring home tours, local food, an art show and a chance to speak with conservation and gardening experts as well as Chapin, who will discuss his book, “Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small Scale Community in a Large Scale World,” due from Taunton in 2010.
See the full schedule here. If you go, let me know what you think!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Return to Eco Geek |
|
|
|Contact Us
|Advertiser Services
|Home Delivery
|Newsstand Locations
|Classifieds
|Feedback
|About the Company
|Work@the Herald
|Site Map