Orono, Maine — Green Home For Sale

Live in an edible landscape! Surrounded by permaculture gardens designed by sustainable gardening experts, this four-bedroom cape borders on a wooded path leading to the flagship University of Maine campus and all its amenities.

Listing ID: 19218

• Green Home
• Healthy Home
• Natural Home

Property Description

This four-bedroom Cape-style house borders on the University of Maine campus and all its amenities. Relax on the spacious covered cedar porch, surrounded by an edible landscape designed in cooperation with renowned permaculture experts Julia and Charles Yelton. Or take a stroll out the backyard and along a wooded path to the Collins Center for a concert or to the brand-new Recreation Center for fitness classes.

The interior includes two baths, wood stove, an office with built-in bookshelves lining the walls, a living room, kitchen, and finished basement/recreation room. The house has hardwood floors, a jacuzzi, central heating, built-in dressers, and large closets. There's also a one-car garage, should you feel like a trip to such attractions as Ellsworth, Bar Harbor, or the nearby Bangor international airport.

What makes your home a Green or Healthy Home?

This home has been the site of a four-year project in sustainable gardening that has engaged permaculture experts, students from the University of Maine and nearby schools, and members of the local Native community. The grounds have been carefully designed to support a diversity of mutually supporting edible and medicinal plants, including 8 varieties of trees, 17 varieties of bushes, and 20 varieties of herbs. Rain-channeling swales, closed-loop composting, and polycultured beds filled with perennials result in no-till gardening with maximal yield for minimal effort.

Newly planted hazelnut, pear, and plum trees have taken root near a pair of full-grown apple trees and a venerable and sheltering silver maple. Joining the extensive blueberries native to the site are strawberry, highbush blueberry, winterberry, jostaberry, and everbearing raspberry bushes. Lilacs, willow, and various flowering shrubs attract butterflies to the front yard, while a polyculture garden in the back yard combines species such as coneflower and bee balm in cooperative combinations. Flavorful and medicinal herbs complete the edible landscape, from sage and horseradish to chamomile and wild ginger. See the property Web site for a complete list.

Neighborhood Description

This quiet residential street is a five-minute walk to restaurants in downtown Orono and a two-minute walk by wooded path or sidewalk to the University of Maine's flagship campus. Recent enhancements to the campus include the $25 million LEED-certified Recreation and Fitness Center and the recently expanded Collins Center for the Arts.

The Stillwater river is two blocks away, with countless lakes and Acadia National Park within an hour's drive.

Market Area

Orono boasts a year-round farmers market, once a week in winter and spring and twice a week in summer and fall, as well as local area CSA's (Community-Supported Agriculture). A citizen initiative called Sustainable Orono promotes local energy and food security with an approach based on the Transition Town model.

For its part, the University of Maine boasts numerous green initiatives including a program in sustainable agriculture (the Black Bear Food Guild), green loans to improve energy efficiency, residential-scale solar thermal systems, food composting from dining facilities, and free bike loans. UMaine has committed to achieving total carbon neutrality within 30 years.

Orono is home to 12,000 students and over 500 faculty, an intellectual community that has contributed to and supported an excellent school system. A variety of educational options are close at hand, from the Orono public schools downtown to the Montessori school across College Avenue to the Wassookeag homeschool community based in Orono.

School District

Orono

Community

Orono

Home Type or Land

Single Family - Two Story

Location of Home or Land

Other

Elevation of Home

Sea Level