It's Time for Design

Finally, it's time for fun.  After months of bouncing around ideas of what my building might look like, the day had come to review various designs that leveraged the space and light of the lot I purchased and the functionality I have defined.

The design team and I agreed on some basics early on.  First, that the ground floor would be a large masonry rectangle a little over nine feet tall, to serve as the basis of the garage/shop facility on the north end, garden walls in the middle and as the platform for the modular construction on the south end of the facility.   It provides a strong, secure and low cost base for the entire project, with  a virtual Lego set of possibilities on top.  Pictured below you can see just a few of the ideas presented to me.

Design ONE is a three floor version where the living/office space is spread across both ends of the compound, requiring a breezeway of sorts to connect.  It also creates a very cool 1950's "motor lodge"look, with terraces on both sides looking down into the court yard.  On the positive side, it created private living on both ends, but it might 'seclude' my seven year old son, and seems to close in the outdoor space/courtyard.

Design TWO is a four floor version that moves all of the living/office space to the south side, it is exactly the same layout and square feet but shifts two of the 'modules' to allow for a taller structure. The top floor, which will be used as an office/den should have a good view of the harbor and if I am really lucky the Statue of Liberty.   In addition it provides expansion space over the garage/shop for a future apartment or additional office space.  The thought behind this design is that with roll-up doors on both sides of the courtyard, it would create a great 100 feet long living space comprised of indoor and outdoor space.  Very open and flowing.

Design THREE is a five floor version that split the workshop/studio from the garages and shifted the galley, dinning/meeting, living area up to the second floor.  This layout while clearly raising the the office/den to a higher altitude and creating slightly more outdoor space, it did disrupt the concept of that floor through living experience, that I have really gotten to like.

So which one of these do you prefer?  Any one in particular?  Or some combination of all?  Love to hear what you have to say.  Next time I will tell you about what I decided and show you a 3D rendering.  Stay tuned for more details and drawings.

It's a Deal!

Pop the corks!  A major milestone has been reached.  We have completed the deal to acquire a great piece of land on the corner of  Conover and Dikeman Streets.  It measures 25ft wide and 100ft long, it is currently zoned an M2-1 with an F.A.R. of 2.0, that will allow us to build a maximum of 5,000 square feet, perfect for the garages, shop/studio, offices and living space that I am planning for.

The lot faces south/south west providing us with great sunlight for living and powering those solar panels to provide the electricity and heat needed to power this facility.   We are looking at a combination of PV (Photovoltaic Cells) and the more traditional type for heating. Only about 10 to 12 square meters of solar panels are needed in order to provide both the heating and the hot water required in a family home.

The lot is currently being leased out for heavy equipment storage and will be delivered vacant when we close early next year.  The last structure on this land was a two family home with a garage on the ground floor, completed in February of 1939.   It was demolished over 20 years ago and the lot has remained empty ever since.

To the right of the lot there are a few single and multi-family residential homes.  Directly behind me is a brand new build that serves as headquarters for a local HVAC company.

As part of this project we will be replacing all 125 linear feet of sidewalks with at least five trees planned along the way.  Under recent NYC law, any sidewalk replacement calls for the installation of tree pits with one of a few approved trees.

In addition to securing the property, we have complete Site Survey, Borings and Phase One Environmental Study in hand.

Looking forward to sharing some of the preliminary drawings in future posts.

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Looking in the Rear View Mirror at 90MPH

Let’s look backwards from today on this post.   I have been asked many times, how long I have been working on this Redhook Green Project, so I thought it might be helpful to review the process to date.  With not quite four months from the idea's inception, I feel as if I am making great progress in building a team.  I will be posting more detail on many of these milestones, in the next week or so.

• July 20 – I have been noodling the idea of how to live a more "green-ish" lifestyle for a while, this project 'hatched' while visiting my cousin Armand’s country home in Roxbury, NY.  The concept was to construct a factory-built country home in a place like Reinbeck, NY.
• July 24 – Met with friend/restaurateur/real estate developer Andrew Glassberg to discuss Brooklyn real estate and development projects.  After thinking through the country home idea, I thought it a better idea to build a 'country home' in Brooklyn.
• July 24 – Ran into a friend, Marc Koch the resident manager of my former loft building.  We chatted about my new passion and he offered to introduce me to Redhook “land baron” Greg O’Connell to assist in my search for land.
• August 5 – Letter to Modular ‘friendly’ Architects in NY area requesting a meeting to discuss my ideas and to understand their experience.
• August 10 – First meeting with ‘modular focused’ architect in SoHo
• August 10-27 Phone calls with various Tri-State ‘modular focused’ architects
• August 27 – Greg O’Connell meeting yields little tangible results, but conversation does confirm find the right site at the right price will not be easy.
• September 9 – First meeting with Jim Garrison Principal; Garrsion Architects.  Felt confident we would work together on this project.
• September 10 – First meeting with Hank Widmaier; Helmsley Spear Real Estate to assist in the search and represent me in a transaction
• September 13 – First discussion with Brooklyn landowner/builder to discuss his lots near the Fairway in Redhook.
• September 16 – During one of many scooter recon missions, I found a corner lot on the corner of Conover and Dikeman in Redhook.  Meets basic requirements, but Van Brundt lots wider.
• September 18 – Meeting with seller to discuss two Van Brundt lots, deal not possible based high cost of acquisition by seller.
• October 13 – Executed agreement for home design with Garrison Architects
• October 13 – Made Offer on Conover Street lot & Offer accepted pending contract
• October 22 – Long time friend and blogger Ellis Posner recommends I chronicle this project on a blog.  
• October 26 – My first blog www.redhookgreen.com launched
• October 20 – First Schematic Designs reviewed for  – 3 different options presented with Jim Garrison and Mathanki Kalapathy.
• October 27 – Basic Design Agreed upon with additional square footage; a hybrid of earlier versions
• November 6 – Site Survey, Test Boring, Environmental Testing and title reports all in hand with satisfactory results.
• November 09 – Conover Street lot purchase contract completed and executed.
• November 13 – Modular homebuilder selected.

Thanks for your interest, look forward to your thoughts, questions and comments.

How To Become a Land Owner

A long time ago Shakespeare said, "I would give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground." Luckily he never had to buy land in the City of New York in the 21st century. Vacant lots are a rare commodity, especially following the recent building boom.  So my search began.  If I was desinted to be a landowner, I would have to fight hard to find the right place.  Would it would be like the land race in the 1992 movie "Far and Away"?  I love an adventure!


I have always loved Redhook and it was to be on the top my list, but I wanted to open up my search to include a few of my favorite neighborhoods in Brooklyn; Vinegar Hill, Dumbo and the Columbia Water Front.

This interactive map outlines the four key search areas.

View Redhook Green Land Search in a larger map

Searching for development sites is nothing like looking for an apartment or house, many lots are not actually listed for sale, and in fact are not actually on the market at all.   It requires a bit of detective work to get a better sense of true availability. In emerging areas like Redhook, it seems like most of the available land is owned by a few significant developers or families who have owned the land for years and are fighting over what to do with it. Either way, it's not easy.

So at this point you might ask, exactly what was I looking for.  Good Question!  I was looking for an empty lot, no less than 20' wide by 90' long, preferably a corner on a quiet street.  In NYC as is the case with many municipalities there are zoning guidelines that govern what you can build, how big and how high.  There are three general groups of zoning here in NYC C=Commercial M=Manufacturing and R=Residential .  I am planning on devoting some large amount of space to garages, workshop and office and could justify the M status.  BTW, M tends to be cheaper than R too ;-)

I started with a street by street search of each of these areas, visually looking for lots wedged in out of the way places, some with for sale signs, others just empty, gathering addresses and other data to begin to ascertain ownership, value and whether they were for sale. I must applaud the City of NY for having amazing web tools to help with this research. ACRIS (Automated City Register Information System) is an award-winning property document online search and registration system with decades of digitized data including deeds, liens, mortgages, assignments, etc. In addition I utilized a subscription based real estate website loopnet.com which helped track down opportunities not easily found on other sites.

Round and round I went, along the way I picked up a real estate agent, a few interesting meetings a good working knowledge of zoning and a few sites that might fit the bill.

Ready, Set, Go!

So what do you think I woke up one morning and decided I want to buy a green-ish house?  Well, kind of, but it was slightly more deliberate than that. 

What exactly did I want? What did I hope to accomplish?  I thought about the various types of places I’ve lived and extracted what I loved, liked and hated about each of them. I reviewed past floor plans (yes, I have them all) and I then visualized the various attributes that would be important in making this new structure a long-term place to work and live.

• Energy/Water Efficient 
• Sustainable Materials
• High-Quality 
• Factory-Built Modern Structure 
• American Made Materials 
• Simple But Exciting Design 
• Design Augments Surrounding Neighborhood 
• Kid And Dog Friendly 
• Easy To Clean & Maintain 
• Open & Light Filled Spaces 
• Interesting 
• Fun & Comfortable 
• Private & Secure 

From that list I started to think about specific "must have" appointments were necessary to meet the above objectives.

• Flexible Commercial Space For Vehicle Storage, Restoration, Stone Carving, and Workshop 
• Open Office Space
• 3 Bedrooms, 2+ Baths
• Outdoor Green Space
• Leverage Water view to see Harbor and Statue of Liberty
• Connection for Electric Car (coming soon I hope)
• Flagpole and US Flag
• Leverage Government Energy Programs

As you will see, this list will change and as what was and was not possible, became more clearly delimited by land availability, design, time, and budget options.  I will cover most of them in detail in coming weeks.  Did I miss anything?  Any thoughts on my attributes and appointments?  Please jump in real-time as we work through the project by commenting below.

Zero Energy "Factory-Built" Homes for the California Bay Area

A new a new San Francisco company, Zeta Communities is setting out to construct factory-built homes that create as much energy as they use - reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with operating buildings.  Read the San Francisco Chronicle article Startup's prefab homes aim for zero energy bills.

Dwell House

In discussing this project with friends, I always find myself trying to explain what "modular" housing actually is.  For many I can simply say it's a “Dwell House” as they are avid readers of the magazine.  For others the term modular or prefab is reminiscent of trailer homes (sometime referred to as double wides) or something (god forbid) like the famous FEMA trailers circa Hurricane Katrina.

Modular building has been around for sometime time and trace it back to Buckminster Fuller over 80 years ago. They can take on many forms including traditional looking housing. The home to the left was built in a factory by Clayton Homes, a company corporate visionary Warren Buffet recently acquired. But in this case, I will be referring to modern modular construction.

From my perspective a modern modular home is constructed using three-dimensional boxes or “modules”, and generally start with either wood or steel framing. These 'prefab' homes are built to the same code as that of an on-site construction project, but these are created in a manufacturing facility.   The interior and exterior, walls, electrical, plumbing, floors, kitchens, bathroom, roofs and stairs are all completed in the factory. The modules are typically 90-95% complete when they come off the assembly line and then prepped for transportation to the site.

After completion, the modular home is shipped in sections to the site via truck, train or barge, and then attached to a permanent foundation at the building site. Several modules can be connected side-by-side or creatively stacked to create a finished home.  The end product is a home that is typically stronger than traditional construction.  Once the home is attached, it is considered real estate and appraised against other custom site-built homes.

Some of the many benefits of modular construction include (many of which I will discuss many in future posts):

• Factory/Assembly line construction means higher quality
• Worker repetition means worker process specialization with reduced defects
• Super Energy Efficient
• “Zero Energy” consumption from the power grid and in turn a zero carbon footprint
• Lower building cost
• Shorter overall project time
• Improved time and cost predictability
• Reduced maintenance
• Exceed typical structural requirements, creating a stronger, solid home.
• Less risk of time lost to weather

A Place to Be Happy!

I currently live in a place referred to as “Triburbia” a nickname coined after 9/11 , but better known as Tribeca in downtown NYC.  I am not sure what I was thinking when I purchased my 10^th floor apartment in a 35 story luxury building, but it turns out, at least to me, to be more like living in a “vertical gated community”.   It was time for a change, but what, where, was it time to sell again?  This is my fourth major real estate buy/sell in less than 10 years?  Where have I gone wrong?   What can I learn from those projects that would insure I construct a place from scratch that would serve as my home for a long time to come?

Build a house, now that’s scary.  I have lived through contractor hell, during many gut renovations over the years, all kinds of quality problems, cost overruns and missed deadlines and did I mention the LIES?

How could I build a cool green flexible house and minimize the cost, insure quality and address the time concerns? Could I do something to reduce the carbon footprint of this home by utilizing new designs, materials, and processes?  But wouldn’t that further exacerbate the contractor issues?   Round and round I went and then I remembered an issue of Dwell magazine called the “Prefab Issue”.  That was were it all started.

Going Green

How do you live a more ‘green-ish’ existence, while being practical about it? That’s a good question.   My name is Jay, I have been thinking about that and some other interesting life-style questions lately.  I decided to share my thoughts and experiences leading to my objective of building a green, sustainable, home in Redhook on the Southwest shore of Brooklyn. I will attempt to step, you the reader through the daily challenges and rewards of this project  I call “Redhook Green”.

So how did I get here?  Read on.