Lee Hall is a home builder/developer/contractor and President of Sustainable Structures, in Allen, Texas has big plans for the Collin County the community of Montgomery Farm. The vision is to build a live, play, work community of mixed use homes designed to work in harmony with nature, and to be the first LEED for Neighborhood development in Texas. Located on 500 acres of pristine prairie and bottom land forest the planned development backs up to Connemara Conservatory, providing the perfect backdrop for Montgomery Farm to be a model for environmentally conscience living in an urban setting.
The TERRACourt home, located in Montgomery Farm, was awarded the first LEED for Homes Gold rating issued by the USGBC (United States Green Building Council) in Collin County. The 5000+ square foot home was designed by Graham Greene of Ogelsby-Greene, and built by Sustainable Structures. The home is an impressive example of implementing LEED standards in a style and fashion featuring regional materials in a way that will appeal to even the most discriminating. Architecturally the home exemplifies the look of a German Farmhouse complete with a stone facade, metal and fiber reinforced concrete roofing, native plants, and a bioswale pond (see image below) to capture rainwater from the roof and to minimize stormwater run-off and soil erosion.
“Not only have we built one of the nation’s most energy efficient homes, we built a beautiful home and we did it without using any special technology or tricks,” said Lee, who oversaw construction of TERRACourt.
Advanced framing techniques such as "California (or 2 stud) corners, metal ladder bracing, hurricane tie downs, R 24 wall cellulose, and exterior Tyvek wraps, helped create a very efficient building envelope which contributed to an impressive HERS score of 49. The HERS (Home Energy Rating Service) Index is based on a scale of 0-100, meaning that this home is more energy efficient than 51% of the homes on the market, a score of 0 would be awarded to a home that is "off the grid," or uses no electricity, and a score of 100 is a home built to scale. An energy star home must be 15% better than code, or have a HERS rating of 85.
Besides his work on the Montgomery Farm and TERRACourt projects, Lee offers LEED for Homes consulting services, is an active member of the North Texas Chapter of USGBC, and on the advisory board for the Chairman of the Regional LEED for Neighborhood Development Task Force. If you are involved in LEED for Homes in the Dallas area, there is a high probability that you do, or will cross paths with Lee. If you would like to learn more about any of these projects or the LEED for ND rating system please refer to the links below.
LEED for Neighborhood Development: http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=148
Montgomery Farm Master Plan: http://montgomeryfarm.com/images/2009.11.04%20MontgomeryFarm%20CDP.pdf
Sustainable Structures of Texas: http://www.ssotx.com/index.html
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