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The Healthiest Homes in America

New Austin properties are among the healthiest homes in America.

Your landscaping is beautiful, your location divine, and your property without parallel. But is your home healthy? The future owners of these two homes will answer with an exuberant "yes" as they tuck into a couple of the healthiest houses in the country. Currently on the market for $2.1 million apiece, these sleek, contemporary properties go beyond mere "green" to the realm of "healthy" with broad use of sustainable and high-performance building materials that benefit not just the planet, but those dwelling within.

How Healthy is Your Home?

Your landscaping is beautiful, your location divine, and your property without parallel. But is your home healthy? The future owners of these two new homes in the upscale Austin suburb of Rollingwood, Texas will be able to answer with an exuberant "yes!" Each 4,000+ square-foot home was holistically designed with green technologies -- some of which had never been used on a residence before.

"Today's sophisticated homeowners desire residences they can feel good about, which will ensure a low maintenance, healthy lifestyle, too. These properties fill both bills," says Todd Smith, Managing Partner at Capital City Sotheby's International Realty, which is selling the homes. Each house boasts 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, and an expansive living area with soaring 12-foot ceilings.

Now reduced to $2.1 million apiece, these healthful homes are true finds for environmentally conscious homeowners, whatever the current real estate climate. Every effort was made to minimize the use of chemicals during construction and to utilize green measures that will provide the purest air and water to future residents.

In designing homes that are equally good for the environment and good for residents, priority was placed on landscape preservation, with 95 of existing trees left standing, new topsoil restored, and no chemical fertilizers or pesticides used in the placement of low-water plantings.

Set on a half acre, each home has a 30-foot swimming pool equipped with the purest, chemical-free water available, utilizing copper ionization filtration for the first time in a residential application.

Commercial-quality common-area flooring uses pebbles and color similar to those seen in terrazzo and refined with a diamond polisher for brilliance and durability. The home has bamboo flooring in other living areas.

"Kitchens use the most energy out of any room in the home," says the architect of the homes, Peter Pfeiffer, a principal at Barley & Pfeiffer Architects in Austin, Texas.

The cabinets are composed entirely from recycled and regenerated resources, such as lumber and wood paneling from sustainable forests. The kitchen also includes low-flow faucets, energy-efficient induction cooktops, and convection ovens.

There's a welcoming foyer, separate breakfast area, and an elegant fireplace in the living room, as well as additional living space on the second floor. These homes would be stunners even without the extensive holistic measures taken in building them.

The green-minded architects took several steps to minimize water use, including on-demand Rinnai tankless water heaters and water-conservation toilets. This double-headed shower is as luxurious as it is eco-friendly.