Freedom from Foreign Sources of Energy: How Your Home Can Support a Clean Independent Energy Future

By Mark Isaacs (Registered Architect, Registered Builder, Licensed Real Estate Agent)

Imagine your new home providing a solution to Global Warming, Dependence on Foreign Energy and Spiraling Energy Cost. Join Sally and me in living at Legacy Lofts and enjoy a close to zero fossil fuel lifestyle with comfort, security and amenity. Live in walking distance to great neighborhood restaurants, cafes, groceries and galleries. Affordable studio lofts start at $125,000, with a wide range of homes up to $525,000 with courtyards and terraces. Enjoy city living at its best!

Everything I know about the pleasure of urban living I learned while living in Italian cities and towns. When I came back to Louisville in 1980, I saw Louisville differently. as a place with endless possibilities to create the kind of urban vibrancy I had experienced in Italy. One night, after a few beers with a buddy at the Outlook Inn, we traipsed around the alleys and sidewalks of the Original Highlands, Irish Hill, and Phoenix Hill neighborhoods waving our hands around: we imagined viable and vibrant urban neighborhoods combining residences and businesses, preserving existing historic buildings and knitting together blockfaces with quality new construction. Even 27 years ago, we envisioned passive solar, energy-efficient buildings that would use close to zero fossil fuel.

Today, we are building that vision at Legacy Lofts: 48 condominium units at the corner of Main and Campbell Streets. Sally and I have decided to sell our home in the Highlands and move there to enjoy a way of life where we will walk to the Bodega café and grocery next door, great restaurants like Mellilo's and Artemesia, and all the galleries nearby. Urban living brings low maintenance, low hassle living: enjoy the community courtyard, your own private terrace, the fitness center and terrace lounge. And you get to enjoy ultra-low utility bills: Legacy Lofts will be a model to the nation of life with close to zero fossil fuel consumption.

Legacy Lofts will utilize SIPS (Structural Insulating Panels like used in the JFVS Building), ICF's (Insulating Concrete Forms), geothermal heating and cooling, photovoltaic panels, and solar hot water to create such an energy efficient building.

Although Legacy Homes is currently building 6 other condominium projects, Legacy Lofts is the first to pioneer these energy practices. In the future all new Legacy Homes will employ these techniques. Even if you choose one of Legacy's other condominiums you will still benefit from our standard energy-efficient building methods: enhanced insulation, sealed ducts, high efficiency heat pumps, and advanced air sealing in line with Energy Star requirements.

Your home can point the way to freedom from foreign energy dependency.. And be a great place to live!