Laketown green home winning design awards

A Laketown Township home designed by a West Michigan firm is generating attention from architects on a national level.

The 2,000-square-foot, two-story home overlooks Lake Michigan. It features a walk-out basement and a variety of green features, including wood steps reclaimed from a 1800s-era blacksmith shop in Indiana. The home met the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design's (LEED) Platinum standard the group's highest designation for green buildings.

"We're very pleased," said the home's architect, John Allegretti. "One of the things we gained a number of points for was we had a limited footprint we only took out a few trees."

In addition to being environmentally-friendly, the home looks good, too, and was recently featured in a photo slide show on the website of Architectural Record Magazine.

The building received several design awards, including one from the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture.

Allegretti wouldn't say exactly how much the project cost to complete but said it came out to about $250 per square foot roughly $500,000, based on the home's size.

The home was designed by the Allegretti Architects, Inc. of St. Joesph. starting in 2008. Construction wrapped up 2010. The main contractor for the building was the Hudsonville-based Lamar Construction, with some work subcontracted from Holland, Allegretti said.

The client is an artist from the Kalamazoo area who will use it as a summer home for her family, Allegretti said.

"She had grown up in Muskegon ... and really wanted a place close to the lake," he said.

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Laketown green home winning design awards