Hardeeville Community in the National Spotlight with HGTV

3/6/2008

Email this article • Print this article

Exterior of House and Garden's "Green Home"

Carter Oosterhouse, HGTV's lifestyles expert, craftsman and host of "Carter Can"

Hardeeville Community in the National Spotlight with HGTV
HARDEEVILLE, S.C. - Good publicity for a real estate developer couldn't come at a better time than right now, and you might say that Tradition Hilton Head has struck "green."

Home and lifestyle cable network HGTV selected the Core Communities development as the location for its first ever HGTV Green Home, which will be given away as part of the network's HGTV Green Home Giveaway 2008 promotion.

The HGTV Green Home is a 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom Lowcountry-styled cottage that features construction and design elements known to contribute to an energy-efficient, cleaner and healthier living environment. It is located in Tradition Hilton Head of South Carolina, a 5,300-acre master-planned community developed by Core Communities of Port St. Lucie, Fla.

During the HGTV Green Home Giveaway 2008 entry period, from March 21 to May 9, viewers can enter to win the home and prize package valued at approximately $850,000. The prize package also includes a GMC Yukon Hybrid in the garage. HGTV will air a special on Sunday, March 23, at 9 p.m. during which Carter Oosterhouse, host of the network's popular series "Carter Can," will guide viewers on a tour of the home. Public tours begin on March 24.

The promotion, a complement to the annual HGTV Dream Home Giveaway, which generates an average of 40 million entries and thousands of home tours, will give Tradition Hilton Head a tremendous national public relations boost. That is welcome news during this period of slower home sales. Tradition's president, David Page, said that although the publicity has just begun, people have already come in "off the street" to see the house. "It has generated interest in Tradition," he said.

The broader Lowcountry real estate and tourism markets stand to gain from the publicity as well while the region is showcased on HGTV, one of the top-rated cable networks with distribution to over 95 million households throughout the United States. Its companion Web site, HGTV.com, attracts an average of 5.2 million unique visitors per month.

HGTV selected Tradition as the location for its Green Home because of the development's own dedication to creating an "eco-friendly" living environment. "Our involvement with the HGTV Green Home allows us to showcase our environmental commitment while demonstrating techniques people can use in their own homes to conserve natural resources," said Page.

Also, rather than selecting an area in Oregon or northern California, for example, known for vigorous, almost obsessive, adherence to environmentalism, the network chose the South Carolina location to appeal to a broader audience. "We wanted to use an unexpected location," said Jack Thomasson, HGTV's Green Home House Planner. "The HGTV Green Home is designed to demonstrate that you don't have to be extreme to be green," he said. "We wanted to select a community that demonstrated that you can live responsibly in a desirable location with modern amenities."

The Green Home, designed by Savannah architectural firm Dawson Wissmach Architects and built by Core's Leon Camarda, features a number of conservation-minded elements. Electric power is generated through an on-site solar energy system so there is no reliance on the local utility for power. In fact, under a pilot net metering program with Palmetto Electric Cooperative, Inc., the cooperative will buy any excess electricity generated by the solar system. So, power generated but not used by the homeowner gets put to use rather than going to waste.

The home is also equipped with a rainwater harvesting system. Using a system of gutters, a holding tank and a filtration system, rainwater is collected and processed for use in the home's toilets and for irrigating the lawn and garden designed by Edward Pinckney Associates, Ltd. of Bluffton, S.C.

Inside, the home is decorated with eco-friendly products and materials by designer Linda Woodrum of Hilton Head Island. Beds and other furniture constructed of wood recycled from the home's own construction site, carpeting, cushions and fabrics made from organic and recycled materials are some examples. Woodrum also points out that "not everything needs to be green," that is, made of recycled material for example, to be conservation-minded. Something like a picture frame made of very high quality is something that you are likely to keep for a long time. So it won't end up in a landfill, and, though you pay more up front, you're not likely to keep spending money to replace it.

Sponsors for the HGTV Green Home Giveaway promotion include Shaw Industries, Inc., Sears, General Motors, SCJ, Kohler, Caesarstone and Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation.

Article Comment Submission Form

Please feel free to submit your comments.

Article comments are not posted immediately to the Web site. Each submission must be approved by the Web site editor, who may edit content for appropriateness. There may be a delay of 24-48 hours for any submission while the web site editor reviews and approves it.

Note: All information on this form is required. Your telephone number is for our use only, and will not be attached to your comment.

Name:

Telephone:

E-mail:

Passcode:

This form will not send your comment unless you copy exactly the passcode seen below into the text field. This is an anti-spam device to help reduce the automated email spam coming through this form.