If you are in the Blairstown, New Jersey area, you might be interested in taking a look at this Crafstman-style Lindal home that is listed for sale at just under $600,000:

http://www.coldwellbankermoves.com/ID/1624802

It is located on 3.17 private acres, and was featured in the Lindal Living Dreams planbook, on pages 50-51. The homeowners modified the standard Craftsman SummerWood plan slightly, and it is a great example of the flexibility and range of styles available when you build a Lindal.

After a successful Dwell on Design LA ‘09, it’s time to regroup and take a look at some of the other fabulous green home design initiatives that have been brewing this year here at Lindal.

January 2009: The Dwell Homes Collection was “soft-launched” with a full page ad in DWELL magazine. The calls and inquiries came flooding in, and just prior to the Dwell on Design show DWELL officially announced their partnership with Lindal and Marmol Radziner Prefab for this year’s Dwell Homes Collection:

“Dwell and Lindal Cedar Homes have tapped Joel Turkel of Turkel Designs, a veteran prefab architect, to design three new architectural designs that will be manufactured through the partnership with Lindal Cedar Homes known for their experience building environmentally responsive houses of natural materials. The Lindal/Turkel design team will also offer clients a custom home option in the Dwell Homes spirit.  The partnership between Lindal and Turkel  has already won them accolades as one of the 2009 Design 100, the  best designed green products by Time Magazine (May 2009).” (Excerpted from DWELL press release.)

In February, Lindal Cedar Homes became the first green systems builder approved by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) as part of their National Green Building Program:

“Green building has arrived, and Lindal is clearly prepared to embrace it. Over the decades, Sir Walter Lindal’s leadership in this direction has been clear. He is an industry pioneer who has set a deliberate path in energy- and resource efficiency—the fruits of which are becoming more and more apparent today.” -  Joel Robson, chairman of NAHB.

As part of this recognition, over 80% of Lindal dealers have become NAHB Certified Green Professionals after completing an intensive 5-day course on green design and construction. Interesting to note is that much of the material covered in the courses was already part of Lindal’s comprehensive and ongoing dealer training program, such as the importance of siting a home properly on the land, not just so the house has the best view, but also to take advantage of the natural features that will allow for passive solar gain in the the winter, use of the prevailing winds to help cool the home in the summer, and to minimize disturbance of the site during construction.

In conjunction with these partnerships, we released a new “mini” planning booklet, called The Lindal Experience 2009. It contains 9 new home plans, including those in the DWELL Homes collection, as well as details about our partnerships with the NAHB and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFHM). In addressing the difficulties that some people face when trying to finance a custom home, our partnership with WFHM makes it easy for our customers to secure financing with a mortgage lender that understands the Lindal process and building system.

It’s great to be recognized by these prominent organizations. Even with this recognition, however, one of the questions that was asked several times during the Dwell on Design show was “What makes Lindal ‘green’?” As I mentioned above, one of the most important, yet often overlooked, aspects of green home design is proper siting of the home on your building lot. But with Lindal it goes beyond that. Being a pre-engineered, pre-cut building package of architectural-grade materials that is delivered to your building site, there is far less waste than with conventional stick-built homes. Our customers often remark on the fact that they “barely filled a dumpster during construction of our 2400-square-foot home!” Also, the Lindal building system, utilizing post-and-beam construction, allows for large, open spaces that facilitate air circulation, and can also reduce the surface area of the home which in turn reduces the amount of building materials.

Lindal is also commited to the sustainability of our building materials and, in the name of each of our homeowners, has planted enough trees through the Global ReLeaf program to replace those used to construct our homes.

Finally, I just want to give a shout out to the following blogs for their coverage of sustainable “green” products, and recognition of good design, including Lindal Cedar Homes! (Links open in a new window):

• Great coverage of the Dwell on Design show: inhabitat: design will save the world
• A glowing review of the new Turkel Designs at apartment therapy: saving the world, one room at a time
• latimes.com blogs: L.A. AT HOME
• In-depth review of the Dwell Homes Collection at Low Impact Living: The low down on living green

The word is out! Lindal is leading the pack when it comes to sustainable, environmentally-friendly green building practices. With over a dozen Turkel plans in the planning stages, and several scheduled for delivery this summer, I have it on good authority that the first open house for a Turkel-designed Lindal home in Washington state is just around the corner! Subscribe to updates via email or RSS feed, and you’ll be the first to know when and where…

After a 4am wakeup call and plane ride to LA, I met several area Lindal dealers, company president Michael Harris, chairman Robert Lindal (my dad), and west coast area manager Kaveh Khatibloo at the Figueroa hotel for a SoCal Regional Meeting before heading over to the convention center to set up for the DODLA09 show.

These regional meetings are always productive, and I really enjoy being able to talk to our dealers face to face at these twice yearly events… they give us great insight on the local home building climate, which helps us in Seattle stay current on what people want in a Lindal home in different areas of the country (and around the world). I think the biggest accomplishment today was “nailing” down the California Fire Specification for Lindal home packages, and how we can spread the word that we have a system in place to help people rebuild after losing their homes to wildfire. (If you would like to know more about the fire spec building system that conforms to building code requirements in fire-prone areas such as southern California, leave a comment on this post and I’ll put you in touch with a local Lindal dealer who can help you get started.)

Pre-convention Impressions

Walking in to the Los Angeles Convention Center this evening was like walking into the pages of dwell magazine! Our booth is in the Dwell Outdoor section, surrounded by Wolf barbecue “ranges,” patio furniture that brings to mind Bucky Tubes (I’ll snag a photo tomorrow), and modern sheds – with butterfly roofs above corrugated metal siding and clerestory windows, a far cry from the big-box-store aluminum sheds stuck in the corners of suburban backyards around the country!

Right next door to us is Marmol Radziner Prefab, who is also featured in this year’s Dwell Homes Collection. As I entered the building I said a brief “hello” to Michela O’Connor Abrams, the publisher of dwell… now there’s one busy person this week! (She spoke at our Annual Dealer Meeting last January to help us kick off Lindal’s “warm, modern” home plans by Turkel Designs.)

I’ll post what’s noteworthy later this weekend, as well as photos of our booth, once everything is set up completely. My impression this evening was punctuated by little electric forklifts buzzing around, and I’m sure there will be folks continuing their elaborate setups until the wee hours!

I will also be posting LOTS of photos from the show on the Lindal Cedar Homes Flickr PhotoStream. This promises to be an exciting weekend, so make sure you’ve subscribed to updates using one of the tools on the top right corner of this blog!

On a completely unrelated note, after today’s news about Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett I’m wondering what sort of impromptu gatherings might occur here in LA this weekend, as our convention is being held right next door to the Grammy Museum at Staples Center.