First house being built at Cliffs at Padre Springs

Paul Weideman | The New Mexican - 11/2/2008

The principles of green building are solidly embedded in a new project by The Sherwin Group, a unit of Prudential Santa Fe Real Estate. "The Build Green New Mexico 'Bronze' certification is higher than anything we've been required to do, but we're going for the 'Gold.' It's the first development in New Mexico that requires every home to have the Build Green New Mexico 'Gold' standard," said Bob Sherwin during a recent site visit.

It took the Realtor four and a half years to get the Cliffs at Padre Springs project approved through Santa Fe County. The subdivision offers 24 lots of from 5 acres to 50 acres on hilly bench-sites opening onto views of the Glorieta-Pecos area, with a few additional homesites of from 10 to 118 acres on top of Rowe Mesa.

"It is our wish to protect this land with all we have, while at the same time enjoying its vast beauty and spectacular uniqueness," says the project Web site. "The design guidelines require that all residents of The Cliffs at Padre Springs act in accordance with the earth, utilizing as many energy sustainable products as possible.

"It is our goal to afford people that wish to build their homes at The Cliffs at Padre Springs the ability to combine outstanding luxury living with sustainable energy solutions while taking advantage of state and federal tax credits. We believe that building green at this point in history is not only ethically sound, but also financially sound."

Sherwin has worked with Kim Shanahan, president of the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association, to come up with green-building design guidelines for the project. Houses will employ eco-friendly, non-toxic materials, and will be built to make use of solar gain — both with passive-solar design and photovoltaic and solar hot-water systems — and geothermal heating and cooling.

"Imagine a home with no utility bills that provides its own food and energy," the Web site says. "Your home can produce all of its own power for electricity, lights, heating and cooling. Enabling you to grow your own organic fruits and vegetables from the water captured from the rooftops and our own community wells."

Sherwin and his wife, Denice, who for many years specialized in Las Campanas properties through their former companies, Santa Fe Land & Homes and Estates of Santa Fe, were inspired when they attended a sustainability conference at the Angel's Nest retreat (motto: "Sustainable living is homeland security") in Taos. "It's all about wind and solar power, and the first hydrogen fueling system in New Mexico," Sherwin said. "They cycle water four times, including for an atrium where they're growing bananas at 8,000 feet, in the wintertime, and the purest water of all is taken out of the humid atmosphere in there. We attended a conference with some of the top scientists. One of the guys is from NASA working on solar technology for the space station, and he talked about new photovoltaics that are supposed to come out next summer that are much more powerful and cheaper than what's available now."

Such ideas are not a fad for the Sherwins. In an interview with the Santa Fe Real Estate Guide in 2001 (when concerns about sustainability were seldom voiced outside the small community of permaculturists) Denice Sherwin said, "I have concerns about water and environmental impacts. In fact, I have profound concerns about that and I think we can always try to do our very best to minimize the impact on this planet."

The Cliffs at Padre Springs property is 1,221 acres and located about six miles southwest of Pecos.

"If you go 30 to 40 miles up the valley here, it turns into the Great Plains, so this was the opening to the Rocky Mountains," Bob Sherwin said. "Glorieta Pass is the only place you can cross the Rockies until you get well into Colorado. That's why it was the corridor used by the Santa Fe Trail, the railroad, Route 66, and then the interstate. It's also the reason why it's the westernmost battlefield of the Civil War, because whoever controlled that pass pretty much controlled the West."

Sherwin said local historian Brian Sandoval, who owns Frankie's Restaurant in Pecos, told him the story of the famous Battle of Glorieta Pass. The Padre Springs area is named after a padre (the Rev. Alexander Grzelachowski, a Polish priest who was known as "Padre Polaco") who served as a guide for the victorious Union troops.

"It's because of all that history, and spending time on this land, that my wife and I decided that being good stewards of the land was our first priority, rather than doing the most lots we could," Sherwin said. "This will be 97 percent open space, and we are planning to create an example for other developments for the highest level of green ever required in a project."

The first house, which is being built by Daniel Buck Construction Company, will employ a ground-source heat pump for efficient heating and cooling; walls of Durisol blocks (insulated concrete forms made of wood chips and cement); and floors of autoclaved aerated concrete panels, supplied by AerBlock of Santa Fe. Buck said the design of the 2,900-square-foot house will be "modern, with crisp, clean lines."

The main project area has 24 lots on 460 acres. Most of those homesites are priced between $250,000 and $450,000. The few lots being offered up on the rim of Rowe Mesa run from $600,000 to $800,000.

All utilities are underground. A path cut by utilty crews up to the mesatop will be a bridle and hiking trail for the residents. "It's interesting that we did all this infrastructure work, but we're actually encouraging people to have homes off the grid, where you can sell energy back to the grid," Sherwin said.

"As far as the house styles go, in our covenants you can do Pueblo and Territorial-style, Northern New Mexico pitched-roof homes, and log homes, the same as in The Estancias in Las Campanas, and with a green overlay on all of them. The owners must use best efforts to hit [Build Green New Mexico] Gold. We do encourage south-facing glass for the passive solar-benefits, but because of the orientation here, it also gives beautiful views of the cliffs."

The property boasts lots of healthy piñon trees, apparently unaffected by bark beetles and drought, which caused a massive die-off of the trees in much of Northern New Mexico. "Glorieta Pass gets a lot more moisture than Santa Fe," he said. "Some of the piñons here are 40 feet tall."

Trees of all types were thinned on the Cliffs at Padre Springs property for reasons of fire prevention. Each lot also will have two, buried 5,000-gallon water tanks for emergency fire protection and a 500-gallon tank for in-home sprinkler systems.

Sherwin went deep for domestic-water supply. "We found good aquifers but we had to go down to 1,200 feet in the lower area, then on top we had to drill through the mesa. We had to bring in an oil-drilling rig and went down 1,900 feet."

Besides the fire-storage tanks, each owner likely will have another, 4,000-gallon cistern buried to store rainwater harvested from the rooftop of the house, and which can be pumped out to irrigate landscape plantings.

Sherwin noted that south was the only direction to go.

"Look at a map of Santa Fe and from Summit all the way down to St. John's College and Wilderness Gate is all up against national forest. To the north, Casas de San Juan is up against Tesuque Pueblo. To the west, Las Campanas is up against BLM land. So south is the only way there has been to grow. And The Cliffs at Padre Springs is only eight miles past Eldorado."

Sherwin's real-estate business is doing well in these uncertain times. "I sold six houses in the last hundred days or so that were over $2 million, which is more than I've ever had in 19 years," he said. "And I had more $2-$5 million lookers than I've ever had. I think it's that the people who have money tend to run opposite of the crowd, and they're out looking for deals."

The Cliffs at Padre Springs, “Raising the bar for Green Living”.

New Mexico’s Highest Standards ever, for Building Green and Healthy Homes. You enter the Cliffs at Padre Springs through a gorgeous gate which frames the east point of Glorieta Mesa. Ponderosa Pines, and 40’ Pinion trees cover these 5 to 50 acre home sites. Each home site is complete with phone, electric and water. Each home will sit high on a forested bench at the base of Glorieta Mesa with spectacular views of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. The pine covered cliffs of Glorieta Mesa rise 800’ behind the homes creating an incredible back drop for this community. There are miles of hiking trails within the 1200+ acre development, which borders thousands of acres of National Forest. Experience living in Nature with community organic gardens with people that have dreamt the same dream. Fly fishing is only 10 minutes away, on the Pecos River and you’ are only 25 minutes to down town Santa Fe. Starting at $250,000.

3 miles from the Pecos / Glorieta exit (299). Call for a private tour of New Mexico’s most progressive green development. 505-995-8623