Someone said to me recently that "Man makes Plans and God Laughs".  Well, that is most likely what happened on this project! 

This project took twice as long to complete and twice as much financially...however the finished project is a banquet for the eyes and heart.   

I had the greatest of intention when I began this project to provide space for a young African girl, Josephine.  I committed to sponsoring Josephine Ambucci at a local college to help fulfill Josephine’s dreams of continuing her father’s work in AIDS Outreach and Education.  Well, thru no fault of her own, Josephine was unable to make her grades high enough to come to the US.  So we are putting her through college at home in Kenya...now ravished with violence...keep her in prayer!

Professionally, Deborah is one of the leading authorities on the subject of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace.  She travels extensively and works from home to coach executives with issues around workplace relationships and issues.

 Deborah has lived in the Putnam/Dutchess area for much of her life.  She is a small business owner.  In the community, Deborah is well respected and at one point spent 17 years in ministry at a local church in Kent, NY.  Deborah’s music and ministry have been highlighted on local Radio and Television.  She also, at times, donates her talent to WHUD radio to do commercial voiceovers.

Her Story

I did not start out wanting to build a “green” home, it just happened.  My guess is that it is a metaphor of buying cloths, only in a much bigger scale.  You need to try on several looks to see which one fits and looks the best on you.

 I began with a concept.  An open floor plan, higher ceilings rooms to fit the any given need during the day.  The size of the house got smaller and smaller as the years passed.  Seven years ago I could have built a much bigger home for ¼ the price!  Four years ago, the booming 4-bedroom timber peg house I wanted was a little over half the price that I am spending now. 

 I picked up an Upstate House magazine (now New York House).  The articles that month were dedicated to green building.  Cover to cover, I read it twice, mulling it around in my head.  New vocabulary intrigued, photovoltaic; geothermal; seal it tight, ventilate it right; lower monthly bills; sustainable materials and so on.

 It was an early spring day last year when, in a prayerful moment I asked the question, “When buying a house in 15-20 years, what are people going to want?”  The answer settled quickly, “a smaller house that is very efficient, low maintenance and doesn’t survive on sucking down oil every year”.

 We all have synchronous moments in life.  It seems that there are divine appointments, when we reach our hand out in need and instantly, the need is filled.  That is how this project came together.

 Why is this Green Home for the rest of us?  This home is not built on the side of a mountain.  It is not made of concrete or buried under the earth.  It is not made of straw and it does not have strange angles pointing in different directions to catch the sun.  Not that there is anything wrong with that!  BUT, this house is traditional.  It has four sides and one roof.  It is the kind of house that banks like to finance!  IT is the kind of house that most of us would live in.

 This home, though, is different in its approach to building.  The building techniques are more rigorous in their standards.  The placement of windows and the overhang of the roof are key elements for heating and cooling.  There are no toxic chemicals used in the materials that go into building the house and anywhere possible we will use quality recycled or sustainable harvested  materials. 

 Somewhere in the process of design and dreaming, the house was accepted as one of the homes in the USGBC’s LEED for Homes Pilot Program. We submitted this building idea to the LEED program and in so doing, made this one of those few homes which will help to define the term “Green Building”, world wide.  This house is now scheduled to be the first such home built in the Lower Hudson Valley .