Developing California’s First Green Hotel

Years ago, I was celebrating my birthday at a Santa Cruz seafood restaurant with my family. On the table there was no glass of water. The waitress said I had to ask for it due to the water shortage in that coastal city. This upset me and while heading back home on that winding highway 17, I started to think. The message of water conservation created a butterfly effect. I was starting to become more aware of the earth’s condition. That night I took a two-minute shower, rather then the eight-minute one that I am used to.

One day, I was struck by a statement in Paul Hawken’s Ecology of Commerce: With every living system on the earth in decline, can we create profitable, expandable companies that do not destroy, directly or indirectly, the world around them… Business is not just a reasonable agent for such change: it is the only mechanism powerful enough to reverse global environmental and social degradation.

This statement is so in sync with my new-age thinking, and with encouragement from other entities, I decided to devote the rest of my life to the consciousness transformation of mankind, one traveler at a time and, ultimately, to change the world.

Seven years ago, I intended to develop and build the nation’s first green hotel in Half Moon Bay. After the city told us to do all the Environmental Impact studies and other reports, and after spending over $600,000 dollars in fees over two years, the message was that we were just doing lip service, and my green hotel development dream would not become a reality. This caused me to shift the location to Napa Valley, where the people advocated the union of development with nature.

The idea attracted minimalist architect, Mickey Muennig, a student of both Bruce Goff and Frank Loyd Wright, and the architect of the Post Ranch Inn, the top-rated hideaway resort in Big Sur, CA. It was the first time that I had contact with an architect who took the concept of sustainability seriously and know how it enhances architectural beauty. I thought about what Goethe meant by Architecture is the frozen music.

Muenning designed the wavy, glass roof line as representative of Debussy’s La Mer and Monet’s water lily style, when the project was thought to be in Half Moon Bay. His sense of beauty and conservation made a big impact on my future thinking in preparing for development. There would be nothing in common between what we would build on a 4.6 acres vacant lot in American Canyon, Napa Valley and the prototypes of common chain hotels. The city of American Canyon, the partners and all the consultants loved Muenning’s roofline, which also flowed with the surrounding mountain terrain; and they loved the gray water filtering system and the swan lake. But another architect, Todd Jersey, showed us how to cut some of the expensive elements in order to make the project a reality while maintaining Muenning’s spirit of design.

The development of the first green hotel is part of a flowing process of entelechy. It is only the first step toward returning our true nature and getting away from squandering ideas and habits. The problems in our society are a problem of mindset. A shifting of the mindset from selfishness and separation into reunion with nature and genuine connection among humans is the key to the fulfillment of green practice. Other hotel developers may pursue LEED rating as ultimate recognition. The Gaia Project went further; it became the medium and the message.

Our hotel’s kiosk system gives information on how to create energy, conserve resource and prevent CO2 from going to the air. Solar lightubes direct and magnify sunlight. Our ventilation system offsets the temperature among the guestrooms. The Balinese style spa; the swan lake and the permaculture landscaping is a symbiotic array of bio-ecosystems at work. All these may make the travelers at Gaia Napa Valley feel good, or as one traveler said, reduce our guilt, but they also may leave with information on how to shift from a mindset of separateness to the mindset of union, and embark on their own inner journey.