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Montaluce Winery & Estates
Montaluce Winery & Estates in Dahlonega (left) has Tuscan-style homes, 35-plus acres of vineyards, a restaurant and a winery. The homes are surrounded by green space, priced from the $500,000s to over $1 million, and designed to optimize privacy and views.
Two homes were built from insulated concrete forms (ICFs), which is a masonry-like building material. Building with them optimizes good things like insulation and sustainability and minimizes bad things like construction waste. This type of construction is considered quite cutting edge, but it’s actually been around for some time.
Dean Trevelino, head of Trevelino/Keller Communications Group in Atlanta, used the material to build a home (below) down in Alys Beach, a New-Urbanism community along 30-A in the Florida Panhandle, very much like Seaside. Its developers were inspired by the architectural traditions in Bermuda and Antigua Guatemala and recycle up to 75 percent of construction waste. The community has homes priced from $995,000 to over $3 million and is a standout with its all-white construction and marked grandeur.
“We used ECO-Block. These are Insulating Concrete Forms (ICFs) and provide the R-55 rating – many times stronger than the strongest material that is used along the coastline, which is typically an R-19 rating,” said
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Trevelino home (Alys Beach)
Trevelino. “You literally just stack them on top of each other and seal them with concrete. Your architect maps out your design so you’re able to count how many you’ll need. So there’s virtually no waste.”
As the homebuilding industry becomes increasingly concerned with sustainability, expect to hear the term used more often. In many circles, it’s considered green building taken to that next level because of its potential for long-term durability and sustainability. After all, well-built masonry homes can last for centuries.
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