Upscale Eco Friendly Vacation Rental: Rolling Hills Retreat

On Tuesday, Ginger and I took a trip out to one of our newest (and most recently built) properties, Rolling Hills Retreat. Created by Target Builders, Inc, this is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath luxury eco-friendly home in Weaverville, NC - just 20 minutes north of Asheville.


Living in Asheville, it's hard not to start using some of the new-agey lingo, but the perfect description for the feeling inside this home truly is "good energy." For me, I think it's the natural light, bamboo flooring, brightly painted walls and an open living space that create such a feel-good ambiance.The whole home is contemporary, but comfortable (I don't usually like contemporary, but this works). No stiff angular chairs here! A good bit of the current furniture came from Mobilia, a great home furnishings store in downtown Asheville. The kitchen has stainless steel appliances and beautiful green finishing on the concrete countertops.

The master bath feels like walking into a five-star hotel spa bathroom. The tub features a great private view of the natural surroundings, has waterfall-style taps and is jetted for a jacuzzi experience. The shower has multiple taps as well, and you can choose which and what directions you'd like to use.

The surroundings are beautiful. There are some neighbors around, but the property retains the pastoral, private country setting feel. The neighbors 'across the way' have a barn down on their property (the little red building) for their horses, and will sometimes ride on their acreage.

Entertainment amenities include a large HD flatscreen TV and full entertainment system with an iPod dock, and an installed stereo speaker system throughout the house. There is a great deck overlooking the rolling hills, and a grill to cook out and dine al fresco. The home also has a built-in air filtration system and humidity control.

Aside from the great craftsmanship and interior amenities, the home has many eco-friendly features. Radient floor heat, solar panels, individual air conditioning/heating units and a wood burning fireplace are just a few.

Accolades:
2008 Asheville Parade of Homes participant and award-winner in the categories of:
Gold Craftsmanship
Healthy Built Home

Target Builders, Inc - and Rolling Hills Retreat - were featured in Builder/Architect Magazine. Here are some of the great photos take for their article.


See our property description and extra information here.
Plus, there is currently a summer special!
Stay FIVE nights, and get a SIXTH and SEVENTH night for ONLY $22!


This home is also for SALE. Come stay with Carolina Mornings and test it out before you buy!

It's not easy being green. But it does pay off!

I'm sure I've talked about our environmentally friendly programs and practices before.

For those who are unaware, here are some of the actions we take to limit our impact on the environment:
-Online fax (paperless)
-Limiting our paper usage
-Using compact flourescent lights in the office
-Encouraging all of our owners to use CFLs in their properties, both for environmental and economic reasons
-Participating in the Adopt-a-Highway program to keep our highway green spaces as litter-free as possible
-Recycling our printer paper - we use both sides, then when we need to discard altogether we use the 'mixed paper' option at our recycling center
-Recycling everything that can be recycled, and paying attention to recycling numbers (higher numbers are harder to recycle, so they use up more power resources to recycle. This defeats the purpose of recycling, which is to reduce the amount of resources used in production of these items)

What do you do in your daily life to be or go 'green'? We always like to hear new tips.

Carolina Mornings also includes an eco-friendly certification program that our owners can choose to participate in. Certification requires a number of any eco-friendly features.

Some of these many possible features include:
Recycling, Isolene foam in ceiling, cellulose insulation, bamboo flooring, local or recycled lumber, "Trex" recycled decking, recycled and energy efficient doors and windows, recycled paper products, bio-degradable soaps and detergents, compact fluorescent light bulbs, cloth napkins and dish rags, environmentally friendly cleaning products, Energy Star appliances, and No-VOC ICI paint.

Check out our officially certified properties individually for a complete list of the included eco-friendly features. Many of our other property owners also use eco-friendly supplies or appliances, but are simply not certified.

It is not always easy - or cheap - to be environmentally friendly. But we believe that it will pay off, for us and future generations. And of course, as more consumers look for green products any extra effort or monetary value will be worth the cost for those companies who make a genuine effort to be green.

The enviro-friendly trend

Customer demands have influenced companies to go green. In some cases, these companies were already inclined to be environmentally friendly. It seems that some are now using the labels, such as "organic" "all natural" and "green" a little too liberally.

How can you tell if a company has a genuine interest in the environment? Check out their entire product line, materials or ingredients, and try to discern if they have a commitment to going and staying green.

Some examples? Recently I came across My Emma, a e-newsletter service provider that plants trees every time a new customer signs up for their services - to represent how many trees are saved by choosing e-newsletters over traditional paper mailings. I've been using Seventh Generation products for years. They are a green home products company from Burlington, Vermont (one of the most environmentally conscious cities in the U.S.) that has been in business over 20 years. This is a sign that they came along before the recent 'green' marketing movement. In addition, their Web site includes an entire section for learning more about being ecologically conscious in your purchases and within your home environment, including an "Ask Scienceman" section.

Another part of this going green movement has been eco-friendly travel. This is great for us at Carolina Mornings, because our company team is dedicated to being as environmentally friendly as possible in our own lives. This dedication has made Carolina Mornings an eco-friendly business since Shari began the company over 10 years ago.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the ways our employees and our company practices demonstrate our commitment to be environmentally friendly.

Environmentally friendly travel

terracurve, the "sustainable travel network" is a great online resource for those looking for environmentally friendly travel destinations and options. You can read about eco news, culture, technology, and more - Asheville even gets recognized on the site as a eco-friendly city.

Most noteable though, is the section for Green Travel Tips. The most popular articles include:

-A New York Times interview with 'ecoprenuer' Dana Ghermine Mayer about green travel trends, where Mayer says eco-friendly travel is better for the world and less stressful for the individual.
-How to pack light enough to bring everything as a carry on, and avoid baggage fees when flying
-Responsible travel guidelines, including packing light, researching your destination, considering carbon offsets, walking or using public transit, support the local and regional economy, and so on.
-A great, brief explanation of Fair Trade (Fair Trade centers around both sustainable development and self-sufficient producers, recognizing hard-working farmers and workers in developing countries as well as the value of the product, establishing both environmental and labor standards.)
-Facts on green travel, and ways to achieve greener travel

These are just some of the many, but I hope they provide a starting point by hitting areas of interest to different people. For example, I was most interested in the Fair Trade article and the article about responsible travel. Someone else, however, might find the green travel ideas most interesting. Regardless, I hope there is something here for everyone- I really enjoyed stumbling across this site.

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Did you know? Carolina Mornings offers an eco-friendly certification program for our properties. These properties participate in the program, but many others also have green features.
In the office, we do our part by recycling everything (sometimes it looks like an aluminum can factory in the kitchen, when no one gets around to doing a recycle center trip), using a paperless Internet fax program, and taking part in Adopt-A-Highway for trash pickup. We're always looking for new ways to reduce our footprint.

Asheville included on list of 'Best Green Places'

Yahoo! - Real Estate has the article of the Best Green Places for 2007 and how they were chosen. A collaboration of Country Home Magazine and Sperling's BestPlaces, the article declares Burlington, Vermont the top Best Green Place. Asheville also makes the list, which probably won't surprise many residents - or visitors for that matter.

The article goes into full detail about how the places were chosen. Here is an excerpt:
The Best Green Places study, which is based on data discovered by Sperling's BestPlaces, examines 24 data metrics in 5 major categories -- including air and watershed quality, mass transit usage, power usage, farmers markets, organic producers, and number of green-certified buildings -- to determine which metro areas are the best places to live a green life. Sperling's BestPlaces ranked the 379 major metropolitan areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. Over 80 percent of all U.S. residents live in these 379 metro areas.

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Keeping with Asheville's green living theme, Carolina Mornings has an eco-friendly certification program for our Asheville vacation rental properties. You can read more here, and also view our certified cabins and rentals here.