“Where’s the Garbage Disposer?” (One of several starting points to a LEED® for Homes Platinum Residence in Anne Arundel County.)

In the mid-March post “Renewable Energy Commitment for Savings,” I foretold of an upcoming post about an area homeowner who likes watching the electric meter go backwards at the only LEED® for Homes Platinum certified single-family residence in Anne Arundel County to date.

The homeowner couple, Bill and Martha Sykora, and their youngest, Sarah, are quite interesting people. Coming to know that was the result of a chance encounter at The Home Depot where they were in a check-out line with L.E.D. light bulbs in their cart. Well, I couldn’t help but compliment them on the greenness of their lighting choice. Next they knew, I was telling them about my green consulting business.

Since then I’ve visited the Sykora’s several times to learn about their LEED Platinum home. When I came to know first-hand how committed they are to sustainable living, I had to try to acquire some background on where that came from.

Martha told me that she spent some time boarding at a DoD School in Italy during the days of worldwide gasoline shortages in the earlier 1970s. Her high school was actually a 4-hour drive from where her parents were stationed. For a time there in Italy, due to gas shortages, the populace was only allowed to use cars every other Sunday according to license plate number. As there was no direct train service between them, the family visits were constrained due to gas rationing. That got Martha thinking about dependency on foreign oil.

In the early ‘90s, just before the first Gulf War and now married to Bill, they were stationed in England. Bill was serving as an Air Force doctor. Martha, a Reservist, enrolled in a military professional development course with him. One of the terms they learned, as she puts it, was a “vital interest means something we would go to war to protect.” Recalled to active duty herself as a nurse and with a toddler and a newborn baby at home, Martha soon enough deduced that the reason for that war which resulted in her separation from their small children was largely to protect vital American interests in the oil fields of the Middle East. That realization caused her to commit to reducing her family’s carbon footprint in any way they could. She calls it a “better to light a single candle than curse the darkness” endeavor.

Adding to this focus were their British neighbors who helped her go from being frustrated by there being no kitchen sink garbage disposal in their home to being happy to freely compost what otherwise would have been chewed up at the sink and added to municipal waste. These neighbors modeled eating meat from humanely raised animals, growing their own vegetable garden and the use of rain barrels.

Another source of inspiration from earlier times was the experience both Martha and Bill had in scouting. I, too, remember how in my own Boy Scouts experience we were often taking camping trips into forests, and earning merit badges in plant science and first aid to animals.

Fast forward a couple of decades. By this time, the Sykora family includes the youngest, Sarah. She is a charming and poised teenager who helped persuade her parents to push for a very green re-build of the tired old cottage building they acquired in 2009 on nearly 6 beautiful acres of land fronting Broad Creek.

Here’s what Sarah was willing to share with me: “Truth be told, I can’t remember what made me so interested in the environment. I’d like to think that it’s something that has been ingrained in me since I was born because it feels so important to me. But it’s more likely thanks to my parents that I first took an interest in the environment. They always encouraged us to do the little things at home to lessen our impact. When I went to my friends’ houses, I noticed that most of them didn’t compost or even recycle. But it wasn’t that they didn’t care about the environment; they just didn’t know. This made me want to learn all I could about the environment. The more I learned, the more I cared and the more I wanted to help create change.”

I think you should also consider what enterprising Sarah was doing as a 12-year-old Girl Scout at Crofton Middle School at this highlighted link. (Note this was about the time her parents bought the fixer-upper on Broad Creek.)

For more about the Sykora’s fascinating and very green home, there are two sources. The first is “Bay Weekly” which did a feature article on the couple and their home. Just last weekend the The Washington Post Magazine ran a feature article about three LEED homes in the Washington Metro area. The Sykora’s is the third one described. Incidentally, I did not perform the LEED certification services for their home. The reporter saw a business card notebook open on their dining room table and “picked out” my card there, assuming my firm had done the work. Oh, do I wish for clients like the Sykora’s! But, I am not trained to certify single family homes under the LEED rating system. (I can refer you to someone in the area who is as good as they get for LEED single family.) I do have the right credential and resources to certify anything but single-family homes. Maybe Bill’s medical office?

Let me say one more thing about the Sykora’s home. I was really taken by the series of small ponds in front of their home (photos from early February) that are continuously fed by captured rainwater from the roof. By the way, when algae forms occasionally in the pond during the summer, Martha skims it for composting.