PORT ST. LUCIE — Ripe strawberries are dangling in the yard at the lone house on Westcliffe Lane. Tomatoes, onions and corn are sprouting, too.

The porch of the Home & Garden Television's Green Home in Tradition.

No green thumb is necessary: A solar-powered pump shuttles water from two nearby rain barrels to the hydroponic garden. To find out if the rain will fill the barrels today, step inside the house, where a flat-screen monitor greets you with the forecast.

No showers predicted? That’s OK. Sunshine powers rooftop solar panels. The monitor shows how much energy they’re generating, too.

“It doesn’t provide all the electricity, but it sure helps,” the home’s architect, Michael Carlson, said of the 2-kilowatt system.

This is Home & Garden Television’s Green Home, the network’s second ever and first in Florida. It’s a $750,000 collection of eco-friendly must-haves and green novelties that HGTV will give away in a drawing in June.

The network built the home in the Tradition development in western Port St. Lucie, where its designers congregated Tuesday — the same day they got word the house won platinum-level certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program.

Features range from the practical (tankless water heater) to the indulgent (organic linen headboard) to the politically conscious (lamps made by artisans in Haiti).

Even the toilets do their part. They have two buttons for flushing: one for a low flow, and another if you need a little more oomph. The water-saving features mean the house will use half as much water as a typical home, according to HGTV. It also will use about half the electricity. Helping to keep the power bill low: extra insulation, a reflective metal roof and Energy Star appliances.

At 2,430 square feet, though, the three-bedroom, three-bath home is no mansion.

Jack Thomasson, HGTV’s green home planner, doesn’t like to build much bigger than that. It’s hard to say you’re green when you’re air-conditioning more space than you need.

Thomasson even bypassed that staple of Florida dream homes: the swimming pool. They tend to use too much water, he said. Instead, there’s a bocce court in the back yard.

The home giveaway contest, which people can enter at www.hgtv.com, runs April 17 through June 5.

A bedroom in the Home & Garden Television's Green Home in Tradition.

A ceiling lamp is seen here in the Home & Garden Television's Green Home in Tradition.

Flowers planted on the balcony of the the Home & Garden Television's Green Home in Tradition.

A section of a bathroom in the Home & Garden Television's Green Home in Tradition.

Tags: development, green, green home, HGTV, housing, LEED, toilet, Tradition, value

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Economy, Port St. Lucie, St. Lucie County, Tradition, Treasure Coast business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.