Tom Lovdal doesn’t just build houses; he colludes with nature to create peaceful living spaces. Like the homes he crafts, Tom is open and organic, principled and peaceful. He’s been listening to nature since his childhood when he worked side-by-side with his father on their dairy farm in Connecticut. The business he founded in 1982, T.H. Lovdal & Company, has always been ahead of the curve, building green and buying local.
Blackburn Woods: The Magnum Opus
Tom’s latest labor of love is the culmination of his professional experience, lifelong respect for the environment and personal philosophy of coexisting with nature in the most mutually beneficial ways. Blackburn Woods is a 16-acre residential development offering wooded hideaways and breathtaking hilltop views, all equipped with city services and easy, five-minute access to downtown Athens.
“We’re just implementing the principles of sound, common-sense building the best we can,” Tom explains. Passive solar design, including energy recovery ventilators produced by Athens-based Stirling Technology Inc., amounts to “a prepaid utility bill.” The site design maintains as much natural vegetation as possible for shade and privacy. Locally harvested hardwood decor is organic and elegant.
Green Building: Then & Now
“There are two tracks of green ideas right now: the new, innovative ideas and the good, old-fashioned common sense reinvented as green ideas,” Tom notes. For generations, people have been building houses with southeast exposure for natural light, positioned below the crest of the hill for protection from the cold north wind.
Global economics can also bring fads back into vogue. “In the late ’70s energy crunch, they were building 1,400 square feet houses with much better energy detailing than today’s standards,” Tom recalls. “We just go back to those roots and stretch them a little. Our compact, green homes have all the amenities of houses twice their size and consume a fraction of the energy.”
A Vocation in Athens
It was industrial building that brought Tom to the Athens area in the late ’70s, but he quickly realized overseeing heavy construction was not for him. “It wasn’t peaceful enough, and it certainly wasn’t hands-on,” Tom explains. “I remember sitting in an AEP trailer with no windows, all the guys smoking. It was enough to turn me off desk jobs for life!”
In those early Athens days, a new friend helped Tom begin the migration to residential building. “He showed me basic framing one week. I showed him some plumbing the next week. And now, 30 years later, we do yoga together.”
Starting Small, Meeting Demand
From the beginning, T.H. Lovdal & Company specialized in the Not So Big House. Long before author and architect Sarah Susanka coined the term, Tom was intentional about treading lightly on our earth and building homes that were site appropriate. “You want to finesse the site, not attack it,” Tom says of his approach to any new construction project. “The smaller I can make a house’s footprint, the fewer natural resources I take out of commission.”
Tom’s first project was a small spec house in the Harrisonville area, about 20 miles south of Athens. Then he built a little house in the City of Athens. “People saw the houses, liked them and hired me to build their houses. But I’ve never pushed to go large scale; I always want to stay hands-on.”
A Sustainable Legacy
As a realist in tough economic times, Tom understands why “price drives decision making way too much.” However, as a civic-minded father who built his son’s grade-school classroom and donates his time to Habitat for Humanity, Tom knows we can and must do better.
He believes a combination of education and policy innovation will lead to more sustainable building and living. Tom cites recent green energy initiatives in the U.S. and China as promising signs of what may come: “You always have to be hopeful, especially when you have kids.”
