Towne has a stack of awards from the recent Building Industry Association Parade of Homes to back up its claim, The Maui News reported.

And at $2.5 million, the four-bedroom, four-bath home in Koa at Kehalani is a bargain. It cost Towne considerably more to build it.

That was OK, said Mike Mervis of Zilber Ltd., Towne's parent company, because it was a research and development project.

Although the project was undertaken for Zilber's residential side, it has provided unexpected spinoffs already for the company's industrial and commercial work. For example, Zilber is rebuilding a huge abandoned Pabst brewery in its headquarters city of Milwaukee, and the bioswales used on Maui are being incorporated there.

Shane Jackson, director of environmental projects for Towne Development of Hawaii, said features from the "Good Home" are being incorporated into the next project on Maui, Milo Court, a subdivision of duplexes at Kehalani.

As a green building, the house has the expected solar water heater, low-flow plumbing and photovoltaic electricity panels.

Much that makes it green, however, is invisible, unless you know where to look. Some of it can't be seen at all.

There are the bioswales, where rainwater is collected underground and stored for irrigation.

To keep down dust and reduce the consumption of materials, the foundation is the ground floor.

Carpets are not part of the plan. Instead, the concrete foundation was ground smooth, presenting an appearance almost like terrazzo. The common Maui aggregate in the concrete provide hues of brown, green and red.

The kitchen counters are not granite, as is usual in $2.5 million homes, but concrete, with 44 percent recycled glass added, and ground smooth.

Most of the stone used was local, some of it gathered from grading at other Towne projects.

The orientation is a visible feature, if you know the philosophy behind the design, which was done primarily by Kevin Mantz, Zilber's vice president of design.

Rooms for morning activities are in the east and rooms for evening activities are in the west, to get the most use of daylight.

The house is oriented to take advantage of prevailing winds.

It is a one-of design, said Mervis, and will not be copied.

"It's not a cookie-cutter design," he said. "You couldn't pick it up and move it."

Towne expects that the buyer will be an environmentally conscious family. Mervis said a group of University of Hawai'i teachers toured the place, and they commented that part of the green payoff from a building like this will be social.

It will change the way people live, for example, getting them outdoors and therefore eliminating the air conditioning.

The house is air-conditioned, but Mervis predicts that when it is being lived in, the a/c will almost never be turned on. However, the developer felt obliged to include it, anticipating that it might be bought as a second home and closed for months at a time.

It is estimated to use only 60 percent of the energy of a similar "Bad Home."

Least visible of all the features was the management that went into the construction.

Although the materials and techniques used were in some cases unfamiliar on Maui, Towne did not bring in specialists. About 90 percent of the subcontractors were companies that had been used on conventional Towne projects on Maui.

There were advance meetings to get everybody attuned to the concept, and there were some subtle attempts to influence the way craftsmen approached their tasks.

There were recycling bins for various materials, and one for scraps of wood, prominently marked. The idea was that if a carpenter needed a short length of 2-by-4, he'd go to the recycle bin, not just chop it off a full-length board.

In the BIA show, the Good Home won its class (single-family, luxury price range).

It also won the Design Achievement in Architecture Award from the American Institute of Architects-Hawaii Chapter.

The AIA was especially impressed by the daylighting design.

The common negative effects of solar heat gain associated with the use of numerous windows were minimized by strategically locating deep overhangs and covered lanais.

A subtle feature was the siting of windows. Some walls are 30 percent to 40 percent window, but not where they would enhance the greenhouse effect.

Maui Electric Co. presented the Good Home with its newly created Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Energy Value Housing Award.

Towne is a pilot program participant in the LEED residential standards certification process, which is about one year old.

Towne will enter the Wailuku house for LEED certification, and Jackson is confident of meeting the Gold standard.

He'd have liked to shoot for a Platinum, but the tough LEED standards put that beyond reach. Not, he said, because of anything spared in the design, but because of its location. LEED favors buildings within walking or bicycling distance of shopping and services, which Koa is not.

It also favors buildings that use materials brought in from less than 500 miles away, which also works against a Maui entry.

Placing the R&D project on Maui did have its drawbacks, including what Mervis calls "the bad disaster" — going out for bids.

With the one-of design, unusual materials and very busy contracting environment, the bids came back higher than expected.

"The awards we have received are gratifying, but the feedback on the Good Home from the public has been even more satisfying," said Jackson.

This was his first project for Towne. The former art major worked on the concepts with his wife, Michelle, a former art history major. (They also did the interiors.)

"The home buying public is beginning to embrace sustainability across the country," Jackson said. "The Good Home is proof that maximizing sustainability does not mean you have to sacrifice aesthetics, value or quality."

Mervis said the Good Home rises to "a different level of design. ... It just feels healthy."

"Costs were an issue," he said.

On the other hand, at least on Maui, Towne should be able to sell it.

Zilber is a diversified commercial and residential real estate development and asset management company with operations in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, Texas, Wisconsin and (since 1978) Hawai'i.

Mervis said in all those areas, "there are only three" where the residential market isn't in trouble: Milwaukee, Phoenix and Maui.