The city of Austin, Texas, is known for lots of things: It has been called the "live music capital of the world," 6th Street is now almost as infamous as Bourbon Street and, of course, there's the Texas Longhorns football team.

But more importantly, Austin is becoming known for its green power and greenbuilding initiatives. Not only are the city's utility companies offering green choices, but also more and more local builders are incorporating the green philosophy into their craft.

One such builder is Steve Wauson, who has owned and operated Steve Wauson Homes for the last 10 years, and has been building homes for three decades. After recently bringing his sister and his son into the business, he changed the name of his company to Craftsman Homes of Austin and set his sites on the green luxury home market.

218 Buckeye Trail

In December 2006, Wauson and company completed an extensive remodel of a luxury home located in Austin's West Lake Hills. The home incorporates a number of green features, including earth sheltering and a rainwater collection system, and is a seamless blend of several architectural styles, making the design of each interior and exterior space at once unique and uniform.

The three-story home at 218 Buckeye Trail has 5,000 square feet of living space, with four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms. The half-acre property also comes complete with a waterfall, koi pond and grotto. While the surrounding area is serene and seems cut off from city life, the home, which was put on the market earlier this year at an asking price of $2.2 million, is only about a five-minute drive from downtown Austin.

Wauson first took notice of the home, a duplex built in 1986, in the summer of 2005. "What I really liked about it was that it was north-facing, and I thought the overall layout was something I could work with," says Wauson. He then spent the next year and a half transforming the duplex into a single family home, utilizing greenbuilding practices along the way.

Because of the frequency of droughts in central Texas, the home's most notable green feature is its rainwater collection system. "An interesting thing about the house is that there's a large spring underneath it," says Diane Purcell, owner of Through the Lens Management, who is involved in promoting the home. Water is circulated between the underground spring and the aforementioned waterfall, koi pond and grotto.

Rainwater is also collected through a system of gutters and "rain chains." The rain chains guide the water from the gutters to a trough-like beam that juts out from the side of the house over the koi pond. The water is collected inside the beam and distributed into the pond.

Rainwater is not the only water that's collected. "In the warmer months the AC unit drips into the water system," says Wauson. "There's also a large dehumidifier under the house. Every 20 to 30 minutes in the summer months, it kicks on and pumps out some water."

He goes on to say that the water system was designed to be used for irrigation purposes. However, the homeowners will have to provide a crucial component to make this work - a large tank for storing water.

Earth-Sheltered Design

Another notable green feature of the home is its earth-sheltered design, and West Austin's hilly terrain provided the perfect conditions. "Two walls of the lowest floor are built in to the side of the hill. Those walls were left uninsulated," says Wauson. Because the two walls are surrounded by the earth, and because the earth at that depth stays at an average temperature of 60 degrees, the bottom floor and - due to the home's open floor plan - the rest of the house will be cooled by the earth when the outside temperature is more than 75 degrees (which, in Texas, is a majority of the time). On the other hand, if the outside temperature falls below 60 degrees the earth will warm the home.

Not only did earth sheltering provide advantages from an energy efficiency standpoint, it also fit into the aesthetic Wauson wanted to capture. According to Wauson, a big influence on the home's design was the work of Charles and Henry Greene, two early-1900s architects who developed the California Craftsman, or "ultimate bungalow," architectural style.

"The homes they built had low-pitched roofs to help the house blend in to its surroundings," says Wauson. Greene and Greene's designs were inspired by Japanese timberframe homes, in which the roof is held up by transmitting the load to particular vertical posts, as opposed to the walls. Wauson drew on this ideology as well. The Prairie style, which, like the California style, is characterized by low-pitched roofs, open floor plans and strong horizontal lines throughout, is also evident in the home's design.

Arts and Crafts Style

But the most apparent style in this home's design is the Arts and Crafts style. The Arts and Crafts movement is characterized by exposed joinery, simple shapes and the use of stylized materials such as hand-painted tiles. "Almost everything is show-your-work stuff," says Wauson.

Instead of buying certain items off the shelf, like baseboards, Wauson and his team crafted the moldings on site. "We did all the joinery on the staircase, the railings, the trim - we [also] molded columns and beams."

Julia Dworschack, Wauson's girlfriend and a local Austin faux painter (a technique where paint is used to give the illusion of another surface), played an integral role in the implementation of this style. Not only was she responsible for the color pallet and tile design for the entire home, but she also applied unique details to individual tiles - most notably in the kitchen - by hand-painting them, as well as inserting colored glass, marbles, stones and the like.

"Normally you bring in your mason or your tile-setter and give them a set of plans and say "go to work,'" says Wauson. "With the Arts and Crafts and California styles, you ask: "what do you think?'" The idea is that by giving each artist or craftsman who works on the home a certain level of autonomy and creative influence, you can heighten your own style and produce a superior product." Dworschack brought a style of her own, and the techniques she applied created a one-of-a-kind look for the home.

One of the home's most intriguing design elements, however, is an innovation that is not influenced by any of these past styles. "A really neat thing is that the [master] bathroom is at the highest point in the house," says Purcell.

The master bathroom is two stories, with a single glass vessel sink and a temperature-controlled shower on the first floor. A stairway of travertine tile leads up to the second floor, which is a loft equipped with a private tub - an amenity that any busy homeowner could appreciate. "If you ever wanted to have a spiritual moment in the bathtub, this is the house to do it," says Purcell.

For information on purchasing this home (218 Buckeye Trail, Austin, Texas, 78746), call Don Sembera at Moreland Properties 512-480-0848 ext. 226.

Trevor McNally is a freelance writer based in San Antonio, Texas.