Whisper Mountain, located outside of the city of Asheville in the heart of western North Carolina, is a community where conservation and preservation meet. That’s why Southern Living has chosen this community as the location for their first 2008 green Idea House.

The Southern Living Idea House at Whisper Mountain is a three bedroom, four bathroom “farmhouse” with a separate “barn” that houses a two-car garage and guest suite on the first and second levels, complete with living, dining, kitchen, bedroom, full bath, and a third floor sleeping loft located in a 450 acre community in Sandy Mush, NC. The home and the detached garage feature a variety of green technologies including solar thermal and photovoltaic panels, radiant heated floors, a rainwater catchment/grey water system, and a green roof. The lower roof of the detached garage is an extensive green roof. Lightweight Xero Flor pre-vegetated mats were used to limit the increased dead load of a green roof system and to provide an instant green roof effect; the pre-vegetated mats provide 80% plant coverage the day of installation.

The green roof was not only used for aesthetic purposes, but also to decrease the amount of impervious surface associated with the built structure. The green roof blurs the divide between the built structure and the surrounding landscape and is visible from the living space above and from the adjacent roadway. This project received LEED Gold certification.