History Reborn and the Future Rewritten...

The Historic Green Village is the vision of British couple Mike and Lizzie Thrasher. Green entrepreneurs from the UK, Mike and Lizzie discovered Anna Maria Island themselves while on holiday in 2005.

What has been developed is a unique development, comprising 4 compassionatey restored historic buildings and one new building. The goal of the Historic Green Village is to showcase the best in sustainable design and technologies, whilst maintaining the uniqueness of our historic seaside community.

The Historic Green Village:

  • Sets a new standard to buildings that work well with their environment

  • Has two of only 14 LEED Platinum buildings in Florida. LEED Platinum is the highest green standard set by the US Green Buildings Council (USGBC)

  • Is one of only a handful of LEED Platinum and Net Zero Energy (NZE) campuses in the world. NZE means that we generate more energy on-site than it will actually consume in a given year.

TECHNOLOGIES:

There are 3 significant tecnologies that we bought to the site:

  • HOT TECHNOLOGY: 78 kilowatts of Photovoltaic (PV) panels to generate electricity on site and solar thermal panels to produce a steady supply of hot water for the Relish Cafe. There are over 400 panels, most of which you can see on the roofs of all the buildings. This cost approximately $430,000 of which $160,000 came back to us in rebates. Once we put more panels on the additional buildings, we will be collecting 90 kilowatts peak (typically 70 in summer in Florida).
  • COOL TECHNOLOGY: ground sourced cooling and heating - using the constant temperature of the earth and the good conductivity of water compared to the air to reduce the energy required to cool and heat our buildings.
  • SMART TECHNOLOGY: from the simple - using cisterns to capture rainwater to irrigate our site and flush toilets, to High Performance equipment: all fixtures and appliances are either EP Energy Star or Water Sense certified; ensuring that only the most efficient equipment is used. Underneath the deck, there is a 3,000-gallon bladder cistern which collects rainwater which is then used for flushing toilets and under the car lot, there is another 6,000-gallon hard cistern (this mixes with air), which we use for the landscaping.
  • RECYCLING on a big scale - historic buildings, recycled materials, low emitting paints, sealands and solvents and a range of other sustainable choices that reflect our desire to have minimum impact on our environment.

We have created a collection of short video clips to showcase the project through its development. Click here to watch them on our You Tube Channel.

U.S. Green Building Council Leed Platinum USGBC