Green Hotel Doors Open for Sustainable Business

Just this past November, the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel opened its doors and, with that, became the first hotel in California and only the second hotel in the nation to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification. The LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) standard guarantees a building, as a whole, from the wood it’s built with to the day-to-day functions, is sustainable and ecologically sound.

Two LEED certified hotels open within weeks of each other

By Dan Sankey
Published: January, 2007 

Gaia was not alone in the race to be the first all-green hotel in California with this certification. In the City of San Francisco, near Union Square, the Orchard Garden Hotel was designed with the same goal in mind. Only a few weeks separated the two’s openings. And though each hotel has achieved their green goals beautifully, the real award goes to the hotels’ guests.

Gaia lies on four acres of land in Napa Valley’s American Canyon. Its open grounds and overall layout sits in harmonious compatibility with the rolling vineyard-covered hills encompassing it. Designers seamlessly weaved the wave-like form of the hills into the design of the wood lattice that accents the roof of the building and the asymmetrical lobby. In the lobby, guests are greeted with a soaring white, splined awning, depicting a butterfly’s wing, a reference to the butterfly effect and the interconnection of the ecosystem.

It took a great deal of effort to achieve a LEED certification. All wood used was new growth, solar panels provide energy. Recycled materials were used wherever possible. Outside, a lagoon catches and recycles natural rainfall. Inside, ample windows and skylights provide abundant, natural light. There is chemical-free cleaning and landscaping, too. The pool water is cleaned with a salt filtration system instead of chlorine. The heating and air conditioning energy system uses 15 percent less energy by balancing the temperature between rooms and guests preferences; if the sun heats one side of the building, air is circulated to the cooler side to balance the temperature.

Extra efforts required to achieve the hotel’s green certification benefit the guests. Sliding doors provide more natural light in the rooms, opening to a patio which overlooks the lagoon. Small things, such as offering tea as well as coffee, wildlife books in the rooms and the clean simplicity of the furnishings truly separates the Gaia experience from other accommodations. Attention to the details instills a comfortable feeling of familiarity.

The Orchard Garden Hotel shares many of the qualities of greenness and comforting amenities as Gaia. But what differentiates the San Francisco hotel is it has achieved this level of ecology within a city.

For the Orchard Hotels, the quest to create an environmentally sound hotel in the heart of the city (Bush St. near Union Square) has blossomed into a fully realized vision of green in the middle of synthetic surroundings. The building’s structure is built with recycled materials. The hotel provides its guests with in-room recycling bins and uses only chemical-free cleaning products. Unique to the hotel is its many works inspired by nature that permeate the building. Bronze leaves and vines accent doors, and prints of petals line the walls on each of its 10 floors. There is a gallery featuring local artists such as sculptor Archie Held, known for his garden art and water sculptures, and an accessible roof top garden.

Orchard’s custom-designed heating and cooling system allows for a 20 percent energy use reduction. When a hotel guest enters their room, they use their key card to turn the system on. And when they leave, they remove the card, shutting the system down and eliminating waste. The system is the only one of its type in the United States, and with such distinctiveness comes added cost, a theme in the forefront of people’s minds in the budding, green building industry.

But Trisha Clayton, spokesperson for the Orchard Garden Hotel, says the long-term benefits outweigh the initial impact. Clayton cites a study published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in which buildings that are able to reduce energy use by 30 percent, can save about 50 cents per square foot each year. A 20,000 square foot building can save as much as $50,000 over the course of five years. Clayton also uses an example of a study by California’s Sustainable Building Task Force published in 2003. The study found that with just a two percent extra investment in green building, on average, LEED designed buildings in California produced a 20 percent life cycle savings, more than ten times the initial investment.

The need to build differently - more consciously, ecologically - has created two hotels designed to please the senses and the conscience. Clean, well lit and elegant in their simplicity, the side effects of their design have proven to be wonderful, as they look to the future.

For a hotel, it is more of a challenge to achieve and maintain sustainability (at the LEED level) than an office building, Clayton says. With the wear and tear of hotel guests, things like organic cotton sheets are just too expensive. But I’m sure five years down the road there will be more options.

As natural resources, oil, wood or steel, become scarcer and more expensive, the cost benefits of building sustainably and using recycled goods is going to increase exponentially. As both the Gaia Napa Valley and the Orchard Garden hotels show, now is the time to start.