Green Woodlands LLC
PO Box 330
Lyme, NH 03768
603-795-2726
August 2, 2005
Mr. Stuart White, AIA
Banwell Architects
The Carriage House
6 South Park Street
Lebanon, NH 03766
Dear Mr. White:
We have read with much interest the projects you did for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and the Dartmouth Skiway. I would like to give you a brief outline of a project that we are looking to do and see if you may have an interest in it. It appears that your firm does not do much “residential” work but if you could bear with me a bit you will see that these projectsare not your typical homes.
First it would help to give you some background of Green Woodlands. We are a multigenerational family limited partnership with a preservation, environmental and wildlife management charter or principal. We currently own around 20,000 undeveloped acres of property in the towns of Lyme, Dorchester, Orford and Wentworth. The property has eight lakes or ponds on it with the largest being Cummins Pond in Dorchester which is approximately 160 acres. We have 13 rustic off the grid cabins and a couple of barns. We use solar for electric in one cabin, radiant wood fired heat in one of the barns, wood heat in most of the cabins and propane lights, stoves and refrigerators in a few other cabins. We do cheat a bit from the rustic style with a bath house, a sauna and wood fired hot tub.
In 2005 we received the Land Owner of the Year Award from the State of New Hampshire Trails and Parks Bureau for the work we do hosting around 60 miles of snowmobile trails, 30 kilometers of cross country ski trails and many more miles of hiking, bicycling and horseback riding trails on our property.
We are looking to build two “Green Certified” and “off the grid” living facilities. The first structure will be approximately 28’ by 60’ house/barn. This will be three stories, one of which will be a drive in lower level, the main and second floor level will be a three bedroom living quarters. Power will be by way of hydroelectric from Cummins Pond dam and solar. Heat will be a combination of passive solar, radiant floor wood heat, propane and possibly geothermal. We use satellite for internet and we do have a phone line coming into the property. The structure will be completely off the grid. We would like it to be as self contained and as little maintenance as possible. The hydroelectric at Cummins Pond use to exist 50 odd years ago but needs to be engineered with today’s technology. Septic has yet to be determined. We are calling the structure a house/barn because we want it to be a rustic barn in appearance from the outside and post and beam on the inside.
We want the structure to be “Green Certified” and “Off the Grid”. Part of the charter of Green Woodlands is environmental education. We want to use this as part of our environmental educational program and a “live” demonstration. We hope to begin construction of this building within a year.
The second building will also be a three bedroom living structure that has more of a “lodge” type appearance. This building will have similar concepts of Green Certification, Off the Grid and post and beam rustic style. We look to start construction on this building in 2007.
We do have a third building in mind that will be a few more years down the road which would be a full lodge with meeting rooms and guest lodging as part of an environmental and wildlife research and retreat center.
If these projects have an interest to you we would like to explain them further. Thank you for your time. You can reach me at 603-795-2726 or 603-643-3136.
Sincerely
Bob Green