Mystery in Langley

Sleuths will be out in force today and tomorrow, scouring Langley for clues to the Male Order Murder. The Highlands has a clue. You can get it at the Coldwell Banker Tara Properties office which is located in Langley Village, under the rose arbor.

Our model home is open to inspectors who need a warm dry place and a cup of hot chocolate while sorting through clues.

Wild Film Festival coming to the Clyde Theater

At a showing this weekend of the local hit film Beneath the Salish Sea, Clyde Theater proprietor Lynn Willeford announced an upcoming special event. April 16 - 19 the Clyde will host a collection of the best nature films from the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival.

 

 Full details will be available on the Clyde's website starting March 1st. More news will be coming from The Highlands on this event as well. Stay tuned.

Summer Weather at Freeland Park - Brrrr!

In summer the wind blows down Holmes Harbor from the north. In winter, it blows from the south. So I was a little confused when I drove past Freeland Park this morning and found the flag standing out southward. 

 

But I wasn't the only one. Pulling into the lot at the park to take pictures, I spied Highlands resident Nancy Little, her sister, Mac and Meg setting out for a walk on the beach. They were quite the coordinated crew in cheery red car, coats and collars. We spent a moment celebrating Sadie the Scottish Terrier's win at Westminster. 

As it happened, when it came to weather, looks were deceiving. Bright sun and a north breeze did not add up to warm. None of us lasted more than ten minutes in the icy gale.

Here are a couple of Scots sayings fit to the moment.

The Scots are steadfast - not their clime.
Thomas Crawford

To a Scot, the past clings like sand to wet feet.
Geddes MacGregor

Finch Cottage gets the rainbow treatment

After months of relying on a rendering to describe the Finch and Goldfinch cottages, we now have real houses. And they are obviously going to be very valuable.

Floor plans that show the two different layots and other details are on our Available page.

Heart Rocks

The Highlands community's resident children's author, Yvonne Palka, collects heart shaped rocks. Friends send them to her from all over the world.

Happy Valentine's Day!

New cottages in the sunshine

Significant progress on the Finch and Goldfinch cottages this week. The Goldfinch has walls and the Finch as both walls and rafters. Roofing is due next week.
Here's our first look at the charming south face of the Finch. The recessed entry and dormers will be shaded by a pergola and look out onto a sunny meadow.
These two cottages are scheduled to be complete in June, but if the weather holds and workers can continue making this kind of progress they may be ready in time for Mother's Day.

Want to move to The Highlands and run the coolest coffee bar in town?

- This is your chance -

1504, our favorite Freeland coffee spot is for sale!

Sale includes all furniture, fixtures, special recipes, and inventory. The loveable Astoria Elettronica Espresso machine is in great condition. Gourmet coffee from Coffee Bean International's Panache in Portland. Room for regular displays of local art on the freshly painted walls. (Plus Dorcas' famous Samoosas and African sauces.)

This is a turn-key offer to the person wanting to step into "a going concern." 1504 Coffee is very community-oriented with 21 years of great local history. Just looking for that right owner.

For more information contact agent Tom White, tomwhite@whidbey.com, 360.381.0012, or leave a message for owner Jess Leon at 360.622.6389.

Maximum recycling

At The Highlands and Langley Builders, we work hard to bring as many recycled products and processes into each of our homes as we can. This week we're installing Bliss carpeting, made from recycled soda bottles, in an Erin cottage and feeling very good about it. But it's always inspiring to see the clever things people do when they set out to make a real statement.

Here's a group that collected leftovers, scraps and by products of all kinds and used them to build a house.

I love the cork wall and the ceiling, which appears to be made of picture frame samples. I've often thought, while choosing frames at my favorite frame shop, Catherine DeWitt Framing, about what I could do if I could get my hands on her cast-off samples and scraps.

The fireplace is nothing short of spectacular. I love seeing beautiful architectural pieces like this given new life - though I'm sure the venting system would never pass inspection in Langley.

While we timid, mainstream types may never get up the guts to build an entire recycled house, projects like this push us to try a little harder to find recycled content products for our own homes.

Drumroll please - the custom bar tops have been installed in the Erin cottages.

Here are the hardwood bar tops installed in the Erin cottages.
This is cottage 29. It has wheat colored walls, maple cabinets, charcoal tile counters and jatoba bar top.

Cottage 30 has soothing gray-green walls, alder cabinets, slate colored tiles and ash bar top.


Cottage 31 has wheat walls, alder cabinets, milk chocolate colored tiles and jatoba bar top.

The buyers of cottage 31 - being the first, will soon be choosing which of the three bar tops they would like permanently installed in their cottage.

Is your counter top merely a functional culinary workbench, or a path to philosophical inquiry?

This week the Sierra Club's Mr. Green tackled one of the knottiest questions of our (well, my) day - the selection of environmentally responsible interior finishes. Sorting through the possibilities is a full time job.

For the Erins, the cottages we're just completing, we chose porcelain tiles. Some have recycled content, some are made domestically, all are long lasting. Those are the qualifications for "green."

They are also beautiful. We selected rich, neutral colors with sophisticated names like Taupe, Green Tea and Seguria, to provide a polished backdrop for any style decor.

Off the beaten track is a great place to be

Interesting article in Residential Architect about architecture firms in small towns. No surprise at all that the first architect mentioned is Langley's own Ross Chapin, a well known advocate for small towns, small communities and small homes.

Ross designed our Erin and Egret cottages, as well as the layout of the entire Highlands neighborhood. Everything about the place, from the perimeter forest and trail system, to the front porch of each home, is steeped in his philosophy of life and community.

While many of the architects interviewed focused on the idea that practicing in a small town means lower fees or lack of interns, Ross said:

"there is the sense, if not the reality, that there's more opportunity in the city. But for me, the balance of a whole life was key.”

The author of the piece seems to struggle a bit with the idea that life in a small town can appeal. But she did pick up on Ross' message about what really matters. This last bit of Chapin wisdom applies no matter where you live, or what you do with your days:

"When you engage in the community, you meet the people, and they get to know you and see your interests, skills, and integrity, and then you're asked to design something,” he says. “In many ways, we're here to serve the community, not to have monuments made to us. It's not the place for big egos, but the place to be helpful.”

Back to the future of less is more

Simplify - it sounds so good. But how do you really do it? Here are some bloggers who've thought long and hard about what it takes.

An opportunity to learn about Low Impact Development

Stacy Smith, Natural Resource Planner for the Whidbey Conservation District worked with The Highlands on getting Low Impact Development in place in the neighborhood. Now she's getting the word out about this year's in depth learning opportunity for those who want to, or need to know a lot about LID.

Washington State University's four week long Low Impact Development Technical Training Series starts in February. If you work in development or building you need to know about LID as more and more municipalities are adopting these methods.

Stacy attended the series last year, along with several Island County contractors and local municipality staff. Because of the popularity of the course they're able to offer it again. Stacy says this year's field components look really interesting due to the fact that the Puyallup WSU Extension campus is undergoing a major LID retrofit.

Register online. You can register for the full series or just one class.

Stacy Says:
"Puyallup is a long haul from Whidbey, but this training is really valuable and with all the new regulations just passed and in the works, it is strongly recommended." She invites interested parties to give her a call for more information 360-678-4708 or email her at stacy@whidbeycd.org.

Hardwood buying trip

One of the many special touches Ross Chapin designed into the Erin and Egret cottages at Snowberry Close is the raised bar between the kitchen and the dining room. It serves many purposes - provides a screen for what's going on in the kitchen, displays lovely artwork, stores dinnerware and gives guests a place to stand with a glass of wine and talk with the cook.
It's also one of those details that allows for a small but important additional something. In a few of our cottages we've used understated maple for these bars, while in the Egret we went a little wild and installed concrete embedded with a wave of recycled glass.In the three Erin cottages currently being finished these bars will have tops specially crafted from hand selected hardwoods. I went to Crosscut Hardwoods on Saturday and spent two hours looking for just the right planks for our cottages.

I love Crosscut, all that fragrant, colorful wood stacked up calling out to be made into fabulous furniture and glossy finishing touches. It's one of those places that make the creative juices flow. Scarlet padouk, rosy bubinga, dark purple black Walnut. Once again I fell for the striped Zebra Wood but had to walk away as it's much too dear. Busy being inspired with great ideas, I forgot to take pictures, so I borrowed this one from the Crosscut website. (Asking for forgiveness instead of permission.)

We came away with Ash, a creamy white wood with lovely figuring in a slightly darker shade of cream, and Jatoba, also known as Brazilian Cherry, which is currently a spicy medium red but will darken to a rich red brown. Two of the cottages will get the jatoba and one will get ash. This might sound like two will be exactly the same but that's not the case. We specifically chose two different grain patterns in the jatoba, one dramatically figured, one elegantly straight grained to create two different looks.

The first lucky buyer will get to choose which of the three they want in their cottage.

Life in a small town - it doesn't get much cozier than this.

Woo Hoo! Pajamas and Breakfast all day!

Mukilteo Coffee Roasters invites you to the Cafe in the Woods New Years Day from 9-3. Wear your pajamas and maybe win a prize!!!

Arriving in a bunny slipper car would be the ultimate.
Photo of pink bunny slippers is from the Tesla Motors blog.

Hidden in plain sight - Nortwest Hub mentioned The Highlands and we missed it!

Usually we're on top of anything that's being said about The Highlands, but way back in August Northwest Hub mentioned us in an article about green building on a budget, More Green For Less Green, but we just learned about it.

The house mentioned in the article - the 99K house - was used as the basis for the design of the Live/Work Studios that will be built on the commons.
The Highlands version is slightly different from the one that won the competition. The deck was moved to the end overlooking the commons and the buyer has the option of opening the lower level as a garage or studio.

Here's what the commons looks like now. The grassy area is approximately the location of the central paved area known as the Piazza.

Another holiday syndrome - PHW

The folks at Inhabitat have identified another holiday related syndrome - Post Holiday Waste, the condition we fall into when trying to decide what to do with the mountain of wrapping and packaging we're left with after the gift tsunami.

At my house this could also be called Post Holiday Waist. The two are often related, as we seem to give each other an awful lot of food and candy gifts.

Either way, here are some tips for dealing with the leftover paper, tree, unwanted gifts or items being replaced.

Combined Sewer Overflow Angst - There'll be none of that at The Highlands

This ... Or this?

Sometimes we have a choice. (storm drain photo from Sightline Daily)

While not very appealing to read, this article about the issues the city of Seattle is dealing with regarding storm water graphically illustrates one of the main reasons The Highlands was developed using Low Impact Development methods.

The same amount of rain falls on the ground at The Highlands as any other property in the Langley area. But in this neighborhood that water soaks into the ground, either naturally due to large areas of native forest, or by way of the rain gardens that receive run off from the roofs of the homes.

Last May The City of Langley passed a storm water plan. The retrofits to city systems are going to be expensive. Because The Highlands was originally built using methods that effectively deal with storm water on site, the city won't have to include the neighborhood in the project.

Here's a video of a newly installed rain garden at one of the cottages in Snowberry Close.

Native Plants, they grow on you

Native plants are the backbone of landscape at The Highlands. The towering heritage firs and cedars that provide the backdrop for the neighborhood are protected by a tree preservation plan.

The understory of fern, salal, Oregon grape and evergreen huckleberry preserves wildlife corridors.

Even our model homes are decorated with wildflowers whenever possible.

The annual Whidbey Conservation District plant sale makes it easy and affordable to landscape with natives.

The Whidbey Island Conservation District is taking pre-orders now through January 30 on a beautiful assortment of Western Washington native plants. The plants are one to two years old, average in height from 8” to 36” and are bare root. Some varieties are sold as plugs or in 3.5” pots. Most plants are sold in bundles of five, and are priced very reasonably.

To receive a complete plant list and order form, contact WICD by phone, 360-678-4708, or email, sandy@whidbeycd.org. You may also download a list and order form by going to the WICD web site: www.whidbeycd.org and follow the Plant Sale link under WICD Programs.

Pick up for all confirmed orders will occur on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at Greenbank Farm, just in time for pre-spring planting!

Order soon as stock is limited.

Breaking frozen ground for two new cottages

Today the ground thawed just enough for workers to pound in the stakes that define the layout of the Finch and Goldfinch cottages.