Berkeley, CA

A Hearth is a Home

Our love of fireplaces, hearths and mantles is deep and ancient. If we have fire we can keep warm, we can make bread, we can care for our loved ones. I rarely find a home buyer that doesn't require a hearth in the living room. "Oh, I don't plan on burning wood in it, I just want it!"

Hearth and Heart both derive meaning from the Old English root hoerte, and we just don't want to move our families into a home without a heart.

So even though wood burning fireplaces are not green at all, and they are put greenhouse gasses into our air, we can't seem to live without them. Actually, I feel the same way, but love the look of lit candles at a range of heights to offer up the glow of a fire without the same carbon level. For best indoor air quality, choose unscented beeswax candles.

Berkeley's Own

The Gardener on 4th Street in Berkeley installed a new potting shed/studio.

It's purpose: arranging cut flowers, planting succulent arrangements with help from the expert staff and just getting your hands dirty. It's the Gardener way of "Social Networking" with their clients. What fun!

The Gardener has a location in the San Francisco Ferry Building and also a wonderful store in Healdsberg. You can find them on the web at www.thegardener.com

This house once held Bernard Maybeck's Packard. He designed and had it built when La Loma was still a country lane and he could drive up into the front door, which are now connecting French doors.

It is the perfect size for a pied-a-terre, a secret hideaway where you unplug your laptop and turn off your mobile phone. Be sure to bring a stack of your favorite books, your French press, Peets coffee, and your enough firewood to waste away an afternoon or two.

The National Association of Realtors is (finally) Going Green!

I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that my new brokerage, The GRUBB Company promotes Green Real Estate with it's agents and clients. Our Broker, John Karney is a marine biologist by training and is well founded in the science of global warming. Coming from a scientific background, he is wary of Green-Washing and I felt myself heaving a sigh of relief when I saw the intelligence with which the topic of "Green Real Estate" has been addressed in our office.

The new Green Certification offered by NAR is a big step in the right direction for creating awareness with Realtors and I am looking forward to adding that certification to my Build it Green designation.

There has been an emphasis in green building of consumerism. Just replace that old thing with the new, new green technology. This is great when we are talking toilets and refrigerators, but I just want to point out replacement should not always be the first line in our green arsenal.

Shopping, remodeling, new foundations... none of them are as green as doing nothing, but they might be safer and more beautiful!

Being green can take a lot of research, so don't let yourself get Green-Washed!

What Are They and Why Should We Care?

There are over 87 species of wild bees in and around Berkeley. These are not even the hiving bees that we are familiar with but bees that live singly in old wood and other wild places they can find to shelter.

These bees are the workhorses of food pollination. Many people have heard of the large scale honey bee colapse but don't realize that just by planting California Native plants in their gardens they can sustain dozens of species of wild bees right here in town.

With drought conditions being what they are, planting soil appropriate, sun appropriate plants are more important than ever and will provide habitat for hummingbirds, bees, and other flying creatures.

Consult the list of hundred's of flowering plants that are attractive to bees at the UC Berkeley Website.