Sausalito, CA

Sometimes being green means taking on the “less is more” philosophy. Such would be the case with the Cavallo Lodge over in Sausalito. For the recently opened lodge, about half of the current lodge rooms they converted from the previous officers quarters, military barracks and the like. But don’t think of this place like Full Metal Jacket but rather Organic Cotton Robe.

We visited there a few months ago for the Going Green conference but we didn’t get a chance to survey the property much. This time, we got to stay over and even check out the spa. (Life is tough) The lodge, waiting for LEED Silver certification, offers new rooms and the classic ones. Even though the new ones offer radiant heating and the hot water comes via tankless water heaters, which reduce the energy consumed by those dinosaur era traditional water heaters. They installed photo-voltaic panels on 12 of the 14 new buildings’ south-facing, standing seam metal roofs which produce about 75 percent of the electricity necessary to run the buildings.

We cozied up in one of the existing building rooms which offer more charm (like the tine roof ceilings and the detailed antique radiator). By reusing the existing buildings, they already considered their carbon footprint. We can only be impressed by the fact that the brains and money behind the lodge used nearly 100% of the building shells and retained or repurposed roughly 75% of the building cores. We applaud these efforts as they not only extend the life cycle of existing building stock, conserve resources, and reduce waste but it also retains cultural and historical resources.

Although we couldn’t see the insulation we knew that they used blue jean insulation in the contemporary lodging and a portion in the Healing Arts Center. Speaking of the Spa, they constructed the floors and ceilings from rapidly renewable materials such as bamboo, wool or cork. Besides green building attributes they offer creativity by repurposing plastic dry cleaning bags (that come off site) for spa guests to take home their wet bathing suits.

Almost no other plastic can be seen on property and the staff couldn’t be nicer (as well as pretty well informed about the green aspects. Now if they could only get rid of the few incandescent bulbs (in the spa and the lodge) then we would be that much more pleased.

Photo by Kodiak Greenwoodh

As of December 6, 2008 only 12% of available listings in Sausalito are in escrow.

For the month of November 2008 only 7 homes sold in Sausalito for an average final selling price of $1,292,143.

The average original asking price of these homes was $1,377,751.

The final range of selling prices was from a low of $750,000 to a high of $2,295,000.

Of the 7 homes that sold, 1 sold at the original asking price (the highest priced one) and all others sold for less than the original asking price.

It took these homes an average of 101 days to sell.

For more information about this area visit my website or contact me directly.

As of November 6, 2008 only 12% of available listings in Sausalito are in escrow.

For the month of October 2008 only 3 homes sold in Sausalito for an average final selling price of $1,878,333.

The average original asking price of these homes was $2,331,333.

The range of final selling prices was from a low of $520,000 to a high of $3,850,000.

All of these homes sold for less than their original asking price.

It took these homes an average of 76 days to sell.

For more information about this area visit my website or contact me directly.

To see everything that is currently available for sale click here.

As of October 6, 2008 only 6% of available listings in Sausalito are in escrow.

For the month of September 2008 only 4 homes sold in Sausalito for an average final selling price of $995,875.

The average original asking price of these homes was $992,000.

The final selling prices ranged from a low of $649,000 to a high of $1,250,500.

Of the 4 homes that sold, 1 sold at the original asking price and 2 went over the original asking price.

For more information about this area visit my website or feel free to contact me directly.

To see all the homes currently listed for sale search our MLS.

There’s nothing like Green to attract Green. In this case, the just concluded AlwaysOn Going Green 2008 Conference over in Marin attracted a slew of VC and Biz Dev money looking to invest their portfolios in green tech. The summit as a whole brought together serious money looking for innovative ideas but to say that all the ideas and companies behind them offered true green innovation and philosophies would be somewhat akin to out and out greenwashing.

Early conference sessions including the solar breakthrough panel discussed various solar advances such as the Mono-crystalline silicon solar cells yet to us dialogue seemed rather pat and lacked needed a jolt.

The abundant clean green water session got a little splashier and brought forth honest panel responses such as "The water industry is dysfunctional. Like a train wreck." To us it seemed appropriate with the water price gouging, privatization of water companies and the like that the panel compared the water policies of many companies to Pyongyang economics.

If the Agricultural Revolution discussion meant to deliver a shock and awe philosophy then they certainly did their job. From the outset the panel consisting of David Cope, President & CEO, Purfresh Inc., Michael Dowgert, EVP Marketing & Business Development, Netafim, Richard Hamilton, CEO, Ceres Inc., and Rengarajan Ramesh, General Manager, GE Water & Process Technologies managed to fill the discussion with ideas of Genetically Modified crops as sustainable. Not only that but they promoted GMOs and commodity crops as the saviors to our economic, energy and food shortage woes. Maybe we had stepped into a parallel universe? The panel basically wrote off the local-sustainable food buying trend as something not serious. They discussed that there might be a way to buy Chilean grapes without herbicides, and even so did they simply forget about shipping those grapes 6000 miles or so? To keep the party rolling, Richard Hamilton uttered, "Sometimes you want to buy produce at a farmers market and other times at WalMart”. That comment brought a slew of comments from the live chat room display including one that said, “Hamilton (Ceres) is scary.”

What the heck are these guys making up this “Green” panel anyway? We might as well had four guys from Monsanto up there uttering the benefits of GMOs and how many benefits they bring farmers. Ceres and Mendel Biotechnology (part of the Next Generation Biofuel panel) who made the Going Green Top 100 companies mentioned their partnerships with, among others, Monsanto. Oops did someone not do their green due diligence homework? Maybe they could add Exxon-Mobil as a top 100 green company and have their CEO speak as a keynote for next years conference.