SN Digital provides easy ways to live green at new Web site Ecologue.com

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pulling together the expertise of popular Scripps Networks brands including the leading media brands in home & food - HGTV and Food Network – SN Digital announces the launch of Ecologue.com, a green living hub dedicated to enabling and inspiring healthy, practical, eco-friendly changes to homes, gardens and everyday life. (http://www.ecologue.com)

HGTV's first-ever Green Home was built at Tradition Hilton Head in Hardeeville, S.C.

Offering access to the broad spectrum of Scripps Networks home design experts including everyone’s favorite green handyman, Carter Oosterhouse; along with bringing together unique experts such as eco-designer and architect Michelle Kaufmann and the green gurus at Natural Home and Plenty magazines, Ecologue.com is a friendly spot on the Web that helps individuals find their own shade of green – the one that fits their life.

HGTV Green Home 2008: Winner Walkthrough Video

http://blogs.hgtv.com/hgtv/greenhome/2008/07/first_look_winner_walkthrough.html

Posted by kwalters – July 23, 2008 10:06 AM

The winner walkthrough video is here! Watch Marsha Coulthard tour her new house in Tradition Hilton Head, in Hardeeville, S.C.
Courtesy, HGTV

All eyes on HGTV Sunday evening to see who won the Giveaway Green Home at Tradition Hilton Head

Excitement is building for this Sunday evening’s announcement of the winner of the first-ever HGTV Green Home, located right here in the heart of the Lowcountry at Tradition Hilton Head.

“I hope everyone in the Lowcountry who loves homes and new communities tunes in to the show Sunday,” said Martin Sauls IV, public relations director for Tradition Hilton Head, the 5,300-acre master-planned, mixed-use, sustainable community in Hardeeville being developed by Core Communities.

“Anyone who is interested in new building designs and technologies, especially the new ‘green’ wave of building, should watch this show,” he said.

“The national exposure Tradition Hilton Head and Core Communities have received throughout this joint venture with HGTV has positioned our company as one of the most innovative in green technology and sustainable concepts in today’s market,” Sauls said.

The winner of the Tradition Hilton Head green home has been notified but is being kept secret until Sunday evening. “The show Sunday promises to be a nail-biter,” Sauls said.

The HGTV Green Home Giveaway winner special airs at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

HGTV has been amazed at the public response to the green home program.

“We were thrilled with the response to the first annual HGTV Green Home at Tradition Hilton Head,” said Jim Samples, president of HGTV. “The number of entries far exceeded our expectations and demonstrated that our viewers as well as our advertisers have an interest in pursuing a greener lifestyle. It is incredibly gratifying to HGTV to see that consumers turn to both the network and to HGTV.com as a resource for accessible and eco-friendly approaches to living.”

HGTV said 21 million entries were received to win the green home, a package valued at approximately $850,000. People could enter to win online once a day.

Tradition Hilton Head and Core Communities are creating an environmentally responsible community that attracted the attention of HGTV, leading the channel’s executives to choose the development for its first green home.

“Tradition Hilton Head is the perfect community for our first-ever HGTV Green Home,” Samples said. “We wanted to select a community that demonstrated that you can live responsibly in a desirable location with modern amenities.”

On Monday, June 9, there will be an online video at www.HGTV.com of the winner answering questions posted by the public recently at the Web site.

Nearly 10,000 people toured the HGTV Green Home at Tradition Hilton Head from March 24 through May 18. Some 150 United Way of the Lowcountry agency volunteers conducted the tours. Tradition Hilton Head contributed $94,000 to the United Way of the Lowcountry from proceeds collected during the public tours of HGTV’s Green Home here.

Everybody's blogging!

Bloggers are all about HGTV's Green Home (and giveaway) at Tradition Hilton Head!
They are popping up like spring flowers every day. Here are a few:

Pink a Doodle Doo blog (yes, that’s it’s name, and it’s kid-safe…)

Moon Dreams and Day Beams

The Bird’s Nest

The Stamford Wife

Sugar and Spice and Mostly Nice

Shelter, Creating a Home that Heals the Soul

Ingleside

Home TV

Ice Cream Mama

I'm in the Army too

Molly's Mom

Energy-saving features in the HGTV Green Home

Carolinas for Boomers

Nova Blog

Hooked on Houses

Holy Vataha

Simple + Green

Stacey Macioszek's Bluffton area real estate blog

A Green Community for the Green Home

(From HGTV.com)

Posted by kwalters – April 22, 2008 1:29 PM

Happy Earth Day! Looking for new ways to honor this big planet we call home? Why not start in your own neighborhood?

- Sign up at HGTV.com/changetheworld to volunteer for green projects in your community.
- Type in your zip code to find local green resources from the ever-growing list at ecologue.com.
- Carpool, take public transportation, bike or walk to work.
- Buy food from local farmers (your taste buds will thank you).

The Green Home is part of a planned community called Tradition Hilton Head, which is built around a town square. In addition to being a great place to watch concerts, play with your kids or hang out with your friends, a town square makes walking and biking easy, reducing our dependence on cars, which cuts gasoline use and decreases the space needed for parking.

Village Square will be anchored by the town's food market and will feature an eclectic variety of stores, cafes and restaurants; anticipated shops include a bank, microbrewery, coffee shop, pizza parlor and hair salon.

Tradition encourages homeowners to use cleaner forms of transportation by providing a golf cart with every home. And to promote a healthy lifestyle, Tradition features over 450 acres of lakes, parks and gardens, plus miles of trails for biking and walking. Golfers can play the Tradition National Golf Course, which is a member of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses and is working toward being certified by the program.

Learn more about Tradition Hilton Head

For more on sustainable neighborhoods, visit the US Green Building Council's Neighborhood Development Rating System.

U.S. Green Building Council Will Tour
Tradition Hilton Head’s HGTV Green Home on Earth Day

HARDEEVILLE, SC (April 16, 2008) – The Savannah chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council will tour Tradition Hilton Head’s HGTV Green Home in observance of Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22 here.

Tradition Hilton Head’s developer, Core Communities, has long been recognized nationally for its commitment to environmental stewardship, placing great importance on building sustainable communities and protecting the environment.

And a great way to observe Earth Day is to take a close-up look at HGTV’s Green Home, HGTV’s first such project.

“The Green Home represents the focus that Tradition Hilton Head puts on being a sustainable, environmentally sensitive community”, said David Page, president of Tradition Hilton Head. “The Green Home is a testament to the fact that our community is looking to the future, not only in preserving the environment but in building homes that retain their value,” he said.

Page noted that being selected as the location for HGTV’s first Green Home demonstrates Tradition Hilton Head’s commitment to eco-friendly and energy efficient development.

“Tradition Hilton Head welcomes the Savannah chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, and we are confident their members will be pleased with what HGTV and Tradition Hilton Head are doing in this green revolution, which we believe is here to stay,” Page said.

Page emphasized: “Core Communities’ leadership in green design is just part of the responsible way the company has chosen to conduct business. He said “The excitement and interest about HGTV’s Green Home has been amazing since the home opened for tours on March 24. In less than a month’s time, some 5,000 tours have been conducted of the home.”

The U.S. Green Building Council is a non-profit organization which developed Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a voluntary, consensus-based national rating system for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings.

The HGTV Green Home is LEED-certified. LEED addresses all building types and emphasizes state-of-the-art strategies for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials and resources selection, and indoor environmental quality. A practical rating tool for green building design and construction, LEED provides immediate and measurable results for building owners and occupants.

Vessela P. Valtcheva-McGee, chairwoman of the Savannah chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and an architect with Dawson Wissmach, said she anticipates up to a hundred people to attend the reception at Tradition Hilton, and a large number of them to tour the HGTV Green Home.

“What better proof that sustainable design is on its way to becoming a standard when a network like HGTV decides they want to create a new show around it,” she said. “As advocates of sustainable practices and high performance buildings, we are thrilled to see the first ever HGTV Green Home in our very own back yard. Designed by a local architecture firm and built in a local development, the Green Home features the implementation of green principles in a traditional and appropriate architectural expression.”

Members of the U.S. Green Building Council include building owners and end-users, real estate developers, facility managers, architects, designers, engineers, general contractors, subcontractors, product and building system manufacturers, government agencies, and nonprofits.

Savannah and Lowcountry members of the U.S. Green Building Council will tour the home from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

The public is invited to tour the HGTV Green Home daily through May 18. Proceeds from the public tours benefit the United Way of the Lowcountry. Call (843) 208-5300 or visit www.TraditionHiltonHead.com for more information.

Earth Day was first observed in the United States in 1970, the year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established, and is celebrated worldwide on April 22.

Tradition Hilton Head welcomes builder of EarthCraft House-certified green home

Scott Homes of the Lowcountry has begun construction of an environment-sustaining, EarthCraft-certified home at Tradition Hilton Head, the 5,300-acre, master-planned community being developed here by Core Communities.

The first home Scott Homes is building in Tradition Hilton Head is an EarthCraft-certified three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath Lowcountry design. It will feature a wraparound front porch and rear garage. As an EarthCraft home, builders must adhere to certain standards on construction, heating and air, insulation, appliances, and furnishings.

Tradition Hilton Head is quickly building a national reputation for its “green” focus. It is the location of HGTV’s first-ever Green Home, which has attracted more than 3,500 tours since opening on March 24. The $20 per person tours include both a walkthrough of the HGTV home and an inspection of Tradition’s Green Preview Center.

“Scott Homes, our newest builder at Tradition Hilton Head, epitomizes the high standards Tradition Hilton Head has set for our sustainable and eco-friendly community,” said David Page, Tradition Hilton Head’s president.

“We are very pleased to welcome a builder of such high quality and integrity as Scott Homes,” Page said.

As a family-owned, fourth-generation homebuilding company in Beaufort County, Scott Homes is committed to the construction of residences that have minimum impact on the environment, said Scott Leiti, president of Scott Homes.

“With the growing concern for keeping the Lowcountry pristine, we have become EarthCraft certified, which allows us to deliver energy efficient, environmentally friendly residences,” Leiti said.

“Preliminary engineering calculations show that utilities will cost approximately $120 per month for the 2,240-square-foot home,” Leiti said. “We are very excited about the opportunity that Tradition Hilton Head has to offer to environment- and energy-efficiency-minded customers and builders.”

Leiti said the home, designed by Sam Liberti of Low Tide Designs in Bluffton based on an original design by Moser Design Group, will be valued at approximately $495,000 and will feature engineered wood products and hardwood flooring, open cell spray foam insulation, house wrap and air sealing to reduce air infiltration for reduced energy use, high performance windows with low emittance glass for reduced energy use, 90-plus percent efficient furnace, carpet made from recycled material, low-flow plumbing fixtures, and a tankless hot water system.

EarthCraft House was created in 1999 as a residential green building program of the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association in partnership with Southface, a nonprofit corporation that provides environmental education and outreach programs for builders and communities.

For more information on Tradition Hilton Head, visit www.TraditionHiltonHead.com. For additional information on Scott Homes, visit www.scottdevcorp.com, and for more information on EarthCraft Homes, visit www.earthcrafthouse.com.

Hundreds Tour HGTV’s Green Home at Tradition Hilton Head on Opening Day

Tours of environment-friendly house now daily through May 18

The very first visitors to Tradition Hilton Head's HGTV Green Home giveaway public tours were Kristen Bronke and her Mother Melanie Coffman, both of Chicago, pictured to the left, shown with Martin Sauls IV (left), Tradition Hilton Head Director of Public Relations and Matt Amman, the community's vice president.

HARDEEVILLE, S.C. (March 25, 2008) – Nearly 500 visitors from as far away as Chicago and Boston toured the first HGTV Green Home at Tradition Hilton Head on Monday and Tuesday.

“We are excited about the start of public tours,” said Martin Sauls IV, Public Relations Director for Tradition Hilton Head. “The initial day was fantastic. Visitors were impressed with the HGTV Green Home, as well as our new Green Preview Center, a first for the region. We look forward to the thousands of visitors over the coming months.”

Melanie Coffman and her daughter Kristen Bronke vacationing on Hilton Head Island from Chicago were the first to tour visitors to step onto the veranda of the Lowcountry-style home which has achieved the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Gold certification.

“This tour is a great opportunity to learn about green building and interior design and lifestyles that help protect the environment,” said Bronke, a high school teacher. “We definitely will be entering to win the home.”

United Way of the Lowcountry is the charitable recipient of proceeds from the HGTV Green Home public tours, and local United Way volunteers are guiding the tours.

On Monday, volunteers from United Way-funded agency Access Network were on hand to give the tours. A total of 150 United Way volunteers will assist in the HGTV Green Home tours. The home is open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., and tickets are $20 per person.

With Melanie Coffman and Kristen Bronke in the first group to tour the HGTV Green Home Monday morning were David and Cathie Townsend of Greenville, S.C.; Bob and Rita Lindberg of Waterford, N.Y.; Joanne Dahl of Waterford; and Jane Gasser of Muncie, Ind.

By the end of the first day Sauls reported that nearly 300 visitors had toured the home which features cutting-edge environmental design and construction, energy- and water-saving appliances and technology, recycled materials, solar panels on the roof, high-efficiency air filters, on-demand hot water, state-of-the-art insulation, pervious pavers, and native, non-intrusive plantings, all of which Tradition Hilton Head’s preferred builders can incorporate into your new home construction.

Visitors also are invited to walk through the region’s first-ever Green Preview Center located next to Tradition Hilton Head’s Welcome Center, where shuttle vans pick up the HGTV Green Home tours.

For more information on the HGTV Green Home and to enter for a chance to win visit www.HGTV.com/greenhome.

Tradition Hilton Head -- Located in between historic Savannah, GA and the resort community of Hilton Head Island, SC in the city of Hardeeville, Tradition Hilton Head is a 5,300-acre master-planned, mixed-use community unlike any other in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Developed by Core Communities, it is considered a “sustainable community” providing the convenience and rewards of a total town living environment, featuring a variety of neighborhoods and housing styles, shopping and dining in charming Village Square, a luxurious Fitness Center & Spa and the Tommy Fazio-designed Tradition National Golf Course. Tradition Hilton Head is located at 3171 Independence Boulevard, Hardeeville, SC 29927. For more information, call (866) 459-1422 or visit www.traditionhh.com

Core Communities -- An award-winning developer of the St. Lucie West and Tradition communities in Florida and South Carolina. Core Communities’ mission is to create and develop master-planned, mixed use, total-living community environments throughout the Southeastern United States. Core Communities is located at Tradition Station, 10521 S.W. Village Center Drive, Suite 201, Port St. Lucie, FL, 34987. Visit Core Communities on the Internet at http://www.corecommunities.com.

Media contact: Martin Sauls, Public Relations Director

Tradition Hilton Head

(843) 208-5300 office / (843) 338-5509 cell

MSauls@Corecommunities.com