Our Solar SunHawk

Image Gallery John Schaeffer, shown left with his wife, Nancy, center, and daughter, Sara, is the founder of Real Goods, a solar retail business that has helped outfit more than 50,000 homes with solar power. The 12-acre Real Goods Solar Living Center in Hopland, California, hosts nearly 200,000 visitors each year. Schaeffer also founded the Solar Living Institute, an environmental education nonprofit. He has experimented with and taught about state-of-the-art green building and renewable energy systems throughout his career. By Steve Gresham

by John Schaeffer

When my wife, Nancy, and I started planning our dream homestead in 1998, our first thought was that our house needed to be far more than a shelter. We wanted our home to express our values and reflect everything we had learned from our 35 years of renewable-energy experience at Real Goods. We wanted to create a home that would promote sustainability by being energy independent, nontoxic and gentle to the environment, and we wanted it to be stunningly beautiful — a home to soothe the soul and nourish the spirit.

Three miles down a dirt road from Real Goods we found an idyllic piece of land with a breathtaking view of the surrounding valley. It was totally off the grid. off all grids — there were no water or septic systems, and the nearest electricity and telephone service were a mile away. A seasonal creek isolated the property; to access it we had to build a bridge.

Designing the Dream

This was a raw nugget of paradise where our dreams could be molded out of clay, literally. The soil is primarily serpentine clay, which makes gardening a challenge but pond-building a snap. Our first project after we graded the road was to dig a 10-acre-foot pond. We use the pond for recreation in the 110-degree California summers and as a source of passive cooling for our house.

Building lessons learned at the Solar Living Center taught us how critically important it is to plan your landscaping as an integral part of the complete homestead design — both for passive cooling and for personal serenity.

At the far end of the pond, we sculpted a 30-foot-wide grotto out of stucco-covered concrete, with five giant chutes to create a waterfall. The water, which overflows from our three natural springs, cascades onto the clover lawn, creating an oasis.

Next, we added an acre of lush permaculture landscaping complete with Spanish grasses, a coastal redwood grove, lavender and other Mediterranean foliage, lots of yarrow, alders and maples, and a corridor of swamp cypress that likes to get its feet wet in the pond.

The next step was to choose the appropriate location for the house. We were in no hurry and deemed it necessary to camp at each potential site.

The area we finally selected adjoins the pond and has full southern exposure. That made it ideal for using passive-solar heating in the house — and for establishing our vegetable garden, and fruit and olive orchards.