Ed Begley, Jr.’s
GREEN HOME MAKEOVER
Saving Energy and Cutting
Waste is a Family Affair by Brita Belli
E
d Begley, Jr., widely regarded as America’s most environmentally aware actor—the one by which
other green celebrities are measured— has never tired of the years of effort he and his family have made in mak- ing their home as green as possible. But this past year, his wife, Rachelle Carson-Begley, had had enough. She isn’t fed up with turning off lights or relying on solar power—she’s just grown weary of the home’s tiny closets and sharing one small bath- room between two adults and a soon- to-be-teenage daughter, 11-year-old Hayden. While Rachelle played the disgruntled foil to the over-achieving eco-cop Ed on their former television show, Living with Ed—which aired for three seasons, first on HGTV and then on Planet Green—her problems with their modest 1936 home in Studio City, California, are those to which most homeowners can relate. For example, cramped rooms
make entertaining difficult. The home’s 1,600 square feet of main living space (plus an additional 600-square-foot room above the garage) does not easily accommodate the fundrais- ers the Begleys regularly host; not to mention the camera crews that routinely invaded the family’s day- to-day lives to capture the couple’s good-natured squabbles over every- thing from composting to conserving
water and energy. For seven years, the family even ran a nontoxic cleaning business—Begley’s Best—out of their garage, adding to the mêlée. “Even if it were designed differ-
ently, it would be better,” Rachelle ex- plains. “It’s just that it’s a 1936 house. Yes, it’s efficient, but it would be great to be able to incorporate everything that’s going on now in eco building and be a recipient of all the latest ben- efits—why not?”
So, the Begleys are moving.
After years of documenting how to retrofit an older house to maximize use of solar energy for electricity, heating, cooling and hot water, fam- ily recycling and rainwater catch- ment, they are planning to sell their modest abode and build a modern, 3,000-square-foot home a mile away. Ed emphasizes that the move is a major concession on his part. “I made it crystal clear when Rachelle and I were dating: ‘This is the home I plan to be buried in. I will never move.’ And I said it repeatedly from 1993 until about a year and a half ago; now I’m going against that.”
Although the Begleys are trad- ing up, they will continue to set an example by building their new home to green building standards that few homeowners have achieved. They’re going for the platinum; that is, Lead- ership in Energy and Environmental www.
NaturalTucson.com
Design (LEED) Platinum standards, the highest rating possible for buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council (
usgbc.org). This premier LEED designation requires an incred- ible environmental commitment in every aspect of the building process, from responsible site development, reduced water use and renewable energy utilities to the use of recycled and local materials and indoor air quality control. Of the more than 130 LEED Platinum building projects in California—the state that boasts the most such projects—only about 30 are
April 2011
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