These are some of Crested Butte's first LEED Gold certified structures. They have LED lighting, American Clay walls (an eco-friendly Venetian plaster), reclaimed and locally milled lumber, solar arrays, and serious insulation that makes it energy-efficient and very quiet. The additional parcels allow for a 5,000-square-foot house, a 1,500-square-foot guest house, and an additional 1,000-square-foot garage or barn. Asking price: $3.3 million
Ocean-to-Lake Estate — Manalapan, Fla.
How eco-friendly is a 12,305-square-foot, single-family home? Luckily, LEED doesn’t ask how many people are living in one enormous space. This one, inspired by Tahitian architecture, has seven bedrooms and 11 bathrooms. Both the Florida Green Building Council and the Energy Star for Homes programs have certified this place as green, too, thanks to its rainwater collection system, air purification systems, and solar panels and energy-efficient appliances; on some days it is energy-neutral, meaning it doesn’t use any more electricity than it generates.
It also has 150 feet of oceanfront, along with water features galore: swimming pool, waterfalls, and reflecting pools, along with a 2,000-gallon aquarium. It sits on 1.6 acres and has a guesthouse, as well as “water floors”—glass floors that reveal an aquarium below. Asking price: $26.5 million
1724 Colfax Ave. South — Minneapolis
There aren’t too many newly (or new-ish-ly) built homes in the Lowry Hill section of Minneapolis, but this four-bed, six-bath, 6,483-square-foot, Victorian-style home from 2008 fits the surrounding architecture and has a few green features up its sleeve. The great bulk of its building materials were locally sourced, it has radiant-heat flooring, and a lot of low-VOC and organic products from paint to lumber.
Also included in this LEED Silver property: a rooftop terrace and home theater. The rooftop has the capacity to handle a 10-person hot tub—the equivalent, according to the Realtor, to landing a small helicopter. Asking price: $2.65 million
3319 Virginia St. — Houston
Texas, not known for much of an environmental movement, is home to some pretty good-looking green architecture. Take the first LEED Platinum home in Houston, which has graced the pages of design magazines. Its green features include bamboo floors, solar power—including solar-powered AC—and low-voltage lighting.
The three-bed, four-bath, 3,789-sq.-ft. home has enormous vaulted ceilings, which are good for lighting, good for allowing heat to escape, and good for gazing up at in wonderment. Asking price: $2.695 million
2015 N. Cleveland Ave. — Chicago
While some think it’s always greener to reuse than start a project anew, it can be hard to retrofit an existing home to LEED Platinum; there are just too many boxes to check. Yet somehow, the owners of this six-bed, nine-bath, 7,400-sq.-ft. Chicago townhouse were able to reinvent it.