Green Meets Arts & Crafts: Windermere on the Lake

A planned residential community isn’t necessarily the first place you might look to try and find the intersection of design excellence and sustainability, but a new development in suburban Connecticut might help to change your tune. When it’s complete, Windermere on the Lake will offer twenty-four luxury homes across seventy-five acres in North Stamford. Developed by Purchase, New York-based NRDC Residential, the project will seek an unspecified type and level of LEED certification.

The design by architects Bartels-Pagliaro is perhaps what’s most compelling. English Arts & Crafts architecture emerged at the turn of the century, in part as a backlash to the Industrial Revolution. The style is distinguished by rooftops that seem to merge with each other and the surrounding landscape and emphasizes craftsmanship and a respect for nature, which makes Arts & Crafts a perfect pronouncement of each Windermere home’s less visible sustainable design features. The four different types homes at Windermere are named for different locations in England’s Lake District where the style originated- Cumbria, Durham, Lancashire, and Westmorland.

Green design features are LEED-typical: low-VOC paints and carpets, recycled-content materials, and LED lighting. Geothermal heating and cooling systems are optional, and each home will qualify under EPA’s Energy Star program. The design team also includes English landscape architect Simon Johnson and Karen Houghton Interiors. The project’s first model home- a Cumbria- just opened up for viewing; prices start at $3.2M. Other than the three-car-garages that each home will offer (though the development is close to the Stamford train station and a forty minute ride to Grand Central Station) the development’s sustainable features and distinctive architecture unquestionably make it one to watch.

• Windermere on the Lake Opens First Model Home (SP.com)
• Windermere on the Lake (Video)

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