Since he was a small boy, Luke Kellam has been swinging a hammer. But his building resum??, up until a few years ago, only included some tree forts and a house that he helped a contractor construct in Wyoming, where he once lived and worked as a wilderness instructor.
After the West, and a stint teaching in Northern Virginia, Kellam found himself back on Virginia's Eastern Shore, where he grew up in Belle Haven, itching to - again - pick up that hammer and build.
This time, though, Kellam dove into his new career by working alongside a master builder in Virginia Beach for a few years until he was ready to start his own company.
That road - and opening L.J. Kellam Construction in 2005 - has led Kellam to build a single-family home that has earned the Platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification by the United States Green Building Council.
Not only is this house the Virginia Eastern Shore's first platinum-certified LEED single-family home, it's where his father and step-mother live.
The Platinum rating is the highest LEED rating a project can achieve.
To be LEED-certified, a home must be "designed and constructed in accordance with the rigorous guidelines of the LEED for Homes green-building certification program," according to the U.S. Green Building Council's website, USGBC.org. "LEED for Homes is a consensus-developed, third party-verified, voluntary rating system which promotes the design and construction of high-performance green homes."
Participation demonstrates leadership, innovation, environmental stewardship and social responsibility, plus, the certified buildings lower operating costs, reduce waste, conserve energy and water, reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions and provide a healthier environment for residents.
They also qualify for tax rebates, zoning allowances and other incentives in many cities across the country.
Understanding why Luke Kellam's father, Lucius J. Kellam III, decided to put the LEED stamp of approval on his and wife Tata Kellam's home is a history lesson of sorts.
Luke's grandfather, Lucius J. Kellam Jr., spearheaded and oversaw the construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, connecting South Hampton Roads with Virginia's Eastern Shore. He served as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel Commission's first chairman until 1993; the bridge-tunnel was named for him in 1987.
Luke's grandmother, Dorothy Douglass Kellam, according to her 2006 obituary, had a passion for "gardening and the beautification of her surroundings."
Their son, Luke's dad, Lucius Kellam III, followed in his parents' footsteps, not only serving as chair of the Bay Bridge and Tunnel Commission, he also became heavily involved in conservation efforts, serving as the first chair of the Virginia Eastern Shore Land Trust to help preserve the Shore's working farms, forests, resources and wildlife habitat, and as a longtime member of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
So when it came time to downsize, and build a new home on a 15-acre parcel on Old Plantation Creek just down the road from Cape Charles' historic town center, building an energy-efficient home fit the mindset.
This seemed like a "healthy way to downsize" and a way to serve as "an example of what could be done," Lucius said on a recent tour of his home.
According to Lucius Kellam III, the effort wasn't about being "altruistic,"... "it's just something we wanted to do."
And it's something son Luke Kellam, hammer in hand, fully jumped into.
The air feels like it changes is some inexplicable way after you walk from the outside into the Kellam home.
A lone log blazes away in the heat-efficient fireplace, placed in the center of a large, open room that melds with the kitchen. The oversized windows allow clear views of Old Plantation Creek, which is just stone's throw from where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Luke Kellam is there to greet the visitors, shoes off and ready for the tour.
His father finishes some dishes in the kitchen, showing off the only item he said he requested for the house - a faucet that he taps off or on without raising or lowering a handle.
Some of the items that make this house platinum-LEED certified aren't obvious to the untrained eye.
Take the pergolas outside the home - a nice, aesthetic feature, but also a way to shade the house from the sun in the summer, and pick up the heat in the winter with angled blades of wood.
The process, Luke Kellam said, is not necessarily difficult. It's just time-consuming and precise, from making sure most of the building materials came from within a 500-miles radius of the house to hiring a third party to verify that jobs were done according to LEED standards.
Lucius Kellam III purchased the 15-acre property a few years ago with an existing house on the lot. The original plan was to refurbish and add onto that home, but unexpected circumstances called for tearing it down and replacing it.
By putting the new home, at about 4,000 square feet, on the old home's footprint, and by keeping the rustic, oyster-clam-shell-covered driveway, the house earned LEED points.
Other factors are less tangible and come together for the overall look and feel of the home, including a layer of 1-inch rigid foam for added insulation, shredded newspaper insulation in the walls, highly efficient windows, natural ventilation and the orientation of the house on the lot for shading and less direct sun - making for lower energy consumption.
A geo-thermal heat pump was installed to take advantage of the stable temperature of groundwater that is used to heat and cool the house.
In the summer, it uses water in the 50s - instead of air in the 80s - to cool the house, and the excess heat is reused to heat water for showers. Radiant floors allow the thermostat to be set at a lower temperature.
A majority of the lighting is energy-efficient, fluorescent, LED- or Energy Star-certified; the appliances are Energy Star rated. In addition, 24 photovoltaic panels atop the house produce solar energy.
Throughout the house, recycled materials hide in the form of counter tops, flooring and reconstituted roofing material made from steel.
In the master bath, Lucius Kellam III shows off a sparkling counter made of recycled mirrors and cabinets from recycled straw - yes, the kind that horses eat.
In the kitchen, the green-from-afar counter tops look more like shredded currency upon closer examination - but that's only because they are. In the laundry room, recycled drill bits emit a silver sheen from the counters. All earned the house LEED points.
On the floor there's bamboo, cork in the work-out room and a new type of linoleum in the laundry room, all of which provide another avenue to use recycled goods. The exterior is James Hardie siding, which is engineered to protect the house from harsh climate and moisture.
One of the region's leading green-design consultants, Janet Harrison with J. Harrison Architect in Annapolis, Md., designed the home with help from Cox Kliewer and Co. in Virginia Beach. The latter helped with the inside design.
Outside, because the existing footprint of the old home was used, little of the site was disturbed during construction. Where it was disturbed, the site was replanted with native grasses that need no watering.
The few plant beds close to the house are taken care of through a low-drip irrigation system supplied by rainwater - caught from the downspouts in transported to a 10,000-gallon cistern buried underground.
This reduces water use and runoff into the Chesapeake Bay, Luke Kellam said.
The overall impact has also reduced energy costs, according to father Lucius Kellam III. Since the couple moved in about 18 months ago, the cost for heating or air-conditioning and lights has been between $49 and $59 per month.
Although the Kellams would not disclose the cost of the project, "a lot of people assume that green building is prohibitively expensive," Luke Kellam said. "What we learned is that through careful planning and a very knowledgeable project team, it can be accomplished without pushing budgets beyond reach. Also, some of the energy-efficient systems qualify for tax credits."
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