Dan's Papers - July 13, 2007 - Josh May Turn Green

With Al Gore's Live Earth concert taking place last week and Mayor Bloomberg's announcement that New York City Taxis are going to all be Hybrid by 2008, for the moment, it seems, the world is stepping up to the plate concerning some of the serious environmental issues facing us today.

Here in the Hamptons, we are feeling the same excitement and the forefront of Hamptons green living is a house in Springs called Project GreenHouse. The house has quite a story. It was designed by Edvin Karl Stromsten, an architect who decided to build a completely sustainable and environmentally friendly house as a personal experiment. He mortgaged his Manhattan co-op and began building on a one-acre piece of property that he bought eight years ago for $75,000 on Copeces Lane in East Hampton.

Before he started building, he met with Corrin Arasa, an event planner who got the idea to posh up the house with luxurious "green" furniture to show the world that green living can be luxurious. Corrin also approached Josh May, a Massachusetts-born, SUV driving, cigarette smoking, meat eating blogger for The Beach and Web Editor for Plum TV to live in the house for a month. This mix of three, combined with Yahoo, SilverJet, Lexus and 360 Vodka as sponsors, has turned this house into a very interesting place.

The house is a three-bedroom, two-bath masterpiece. Everything from the furnishings to the heating systems, to even the guy that is living in it, is completely sustainable. The goal of the house is to keep it from having any "footprint" on the earth. The house has a geothermal heating system, as well as solar paneling and luxurious furnishings, some that are made from recycled seatbelts.

The most interesting part of the house is not its ability to operate without fossil fuels, but the guy that is living in it for 30 days. The guest of the home is Josh May, a former editor here at Dan's Papers and at Hampton Style Magazine, whose cigarette-smoking days are over -- or, at least, for thirty days they are. I headed down to the house to meet Josh, who was on his eighth day living at the home. His skin looked tan. "I rode my bike twenty miles today," he said with a sense of pride and just a hint of frustration. Josh May definitely has acquired a new edge to him since his lifestyle change, especially because he can't smoke cigarettes anymore. "My record trying to quit was three weeks. Not much of a record, but now I'm on my eighth day and so far so good."

Josh pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket filled with Nicorette and fumbled through the bag, his hand shaking a bit as he opened the gum and popped one in his mouth. "I've noticed that I'm more agitated with people, which you can expect when you quit smoking. It's also really hard to see other people out at a bar with a cigarette. That's when I really miss it."

Josh showed me the house, which has been landscaped by Marders and contains some of Mica Marder's sculptures from the Silas Marder Gallery, as well as some of Silas Marder's artwork. The house has a very modern feel -- you would never know that it used geothermal heating and cooling. The kitchen had a bowl of fresh fruit out on the counter.

"Katie Lee Joel was just here telling me how to cook," Josh explained. "I've been shooting with a camera crew all day. It's been terrible, they all show up with bags of Doritos and doughnuts. I think they are doing it on purpose, but it's been a lot of fun."

So far, Josh has already had some problems. He's already run out of juice on his electric scooter once -- its range was not as far as he thought. "I was so pissed. The thing started going four miles an hour about two miles from the house and then just died. I pushed it the rest of the way," he said as he showed me the scooter out by the garage. It was hard not to notice the absolutely gorgeous Lexus Hybrid outside. "This car is just incredible," I said. "Let's go for a spin."

"I can only use it under really bad weather conditions," Josh said glumly. "I have to ride my bike or the scooter when the weather is nice." "Oh. That's just wrong," I said.

If Josh is caught using the Lexus or smoking or leaving the lights on, he has to go through eco-labor. He has left the lights on in the house already, which is going to cost him. The penalty? Planting a tree.

Josh has admitted that he plans on having to plant a lot of trees.

Chef Katie Lee Joel is going to be serving up Josh some of her best local foods, as he can't eat food that has been shipped more than 25 miles in order to get to his plate. Josh is excited to be eating healthily and he is hoping that developing better eating habits as well as quitting smoking will stay with him after his eco-adventure is over.

Josh will also be given green clothing and green dating advice, which means that he will wear clothing made from companies that use sustainable work and energy practices and only be encouraged to go on green dates, such as kayaking instead of driving around in his SUV.

You can be sure that, at least for the past eight days, Josh has been sticking to his environmental guns. It is very clear that he is making a real effort to change his life, not only for the experiment, but also because he is excited about living a healthier lifestyle. Of course, the Yahoo cameras -- his police force -- have helped keep him in line. Yahoo is going to follow Josh around on camera and post the video on a blog which goes up this week, where viewers can watch Josh use all of the new eco-friendly technology in the house, as well as suffer through cigarette and cheeseburger withdrawal -- which should make for some very interesting viewing. We here at Dan's Papers would like to wish Josh good luck on living green. Hopefully, this experiment will inspire others to do the same.