Favoring green

As an environmentally conscious resident of Los Angeles, and a daily reader of the Los Angeles Times, I wanted to thank you for the timely article on the Bravmann-Koll house (“Lightly on the Land,” Oct. 2).

My fiance and I are closing escrow in a few days in the Hollywood Hills and all my efforts for “green” contractors and designers had come up dry. Now, thanks to your article, we not only have somewhere to start, but inspiration and motivation.

Thank you for covering the alternatives out there and I hope there will always be articles that feature products for the home and life that are gentler on all of us.

Barndi Kimm

Hollywood

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Whatever else it is, the house built by Koll and Bravmann is not an example of living “lightly on the land.” At 3,000 square feet, with 3 1/2 bathrooms (for two people!), this is another example of typical American over-consumption. (Ironically, they recognize and decry this pattern in other people in the article.) The master suite alone is only 50 square feet smaller than the first house I bought in Southern California, and is about the size of the entire apartments of many Californians. The electric bill of $30 a month is the same as my last month’s bill for a house of about half the size and without any solar cells. Certainly they have a right to build any house they can afford. Let’s just not kid anyone that this house is an example of ecologically responsible living.

It’s time for all of us to think seriously about the goal of living simply and lightly on Earth, and this article doesn’t describe that.

John Fries

Long Beach