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"  Inside Lisa Bush&amp;#039;s sustainable pine cabinets, the recycled mason jars are always half full. The co-owner of Mona Moore, Montreal&amp;#039;s fashionfiendish shoe and bag shop, and her eco-preneur hubby, Scott Vineberg, built their new Topanga Canyon home on optimistic principles of &amp;quot;pragmatic idealism.&amp;quot; The apparent contradiction in terms, and the house itself, is the Obama-era very latest: complex analysis coexisting with simple hope, global cuisine with local farms, hepcat with do-gooder, eco with chic.  Lounging poolside makeup-less, as usual, in a stark white Loll Adirondack chair (constructed from recycled milk jugs), the North Carolinian Bush passes for a Southern California native, but the occasional &amp;quot;aboot&amp;quot; reveals her recent Canadian past. She and Vineberg\u2014who miraculously pulls off a Joaquin Phoenix beard\u2014met in college on an archaeological dig in Sicily. Three years later, they moved together to his hometown, Montreal. They quickly became part of the city&amp;#039;s young, free-spirited scene by opening successful indie ventures: an eatery, a skate shop, a mentorship nonprofit, the new eco-urban Casa Bianca Hotel, and the legendary Mona Moore boutique\u2014co-helmed by Rick Owens vet Anna Maria Varriano\u2014 whose reputation has radiated to the U.S. thanks to brilliant e-tail sales. But 13 long winters later, they wanted sun and a little land. On a visit to L.A. in 2004, Bush and Vineberg fell hard for Topanga&amp;#039;s bohemian dreamscape, where\u2014against the backdrop of desert brush\u2014meticulously preserved VW buses still park outside natural-food stores, haunted by ghosts of high-profile crunchy residents past ( Joni!). The couple cashed in their profits and an inheritance, uprooted daughters Grace, 18, and Kali, 16, and bought a 1.5-acre former ashram site. They found their spirit architect in Barbara Bestor, whose modernist bohemian aesthetic is defining this millennium&amp;#039;s take on California Easy Livin&amp;#039;. Bestor channeled Bush and Vineberg&amp;#039;s city-country split with what she terms &amp;quot;infrastructural organic.&amp;quot; She turned a Miracle Truss prefabricated steel frame, essentially an industrial kit house, into an eco-optimized barn-loft. &amp;quot;Agricultural building techniques support flexible, huge spaces without insane costs,&amp;quot; Bestor says. The airy house serves as a model for affordably adapting some of the latest green building tricks. Rather than airconditioning, the house uses passive temperature control\u2014window and door placement retains heat in the winter, and circulates cold air in summer. Large windows coated with a &amp;quot;low emittance&amp;quot; transparent metallic film let much less heat escape or enter; a silver galvanized roof and the white metal facade reflect light rather than emitting heat (and thus contributing to global warming) like dark surfaces do.  Lisa proudly displays their &amp;quot;Solar System&amp;quot;: a wall-mounted grid of copper piping evoking both a mad scientist&amp;#039;s experiment and a computer chip, which heats the house and chlorine-free pool. (Drip irrigation feeds Vineberg&amp;#039;s red romaine- and artichoke-heavy garden, as well as the orchard.) Meanwhile, Mona Moore&amp;#039;s Venice Beach location opens on sweet, bungalow-lined Abbot Kinney this summer. Shoppers will have the luxury of knowing that each of their Van Noten, Hardy, Demeulemeester, and Zoraide purchases will fund 10 new tree plantings, thanks to Vineberg&amp;#039;s Trees Cool Earth organization. &amp;quot;The Industrial Age left us with advances but also a gnarly mess,&amp;quot; Vineberg says. &amp;quot;This is the Creative Age of organic farming, art, fashion, and design. The thing about the Wild West is that you can still pioneer. You can reinvent yourself, and you can reinvent the world.&amp;quot; California, we love you. Pragmatic Idealism : Large eco-change? Good cocktail convo. Small changes? Make them now, or consign us all to an ugly hellfire planet.  EnergyLarge Scale: New builders, passive solar design is all the rage. This means positioning the house to take full advantage of daylight and sun.Small Scale:  Lower the heat before bed. Unplug your television, DVD, computer, and cell phone charger when you aren&amp;#039;t using them. Go to sleep when it gets dark. (Just kidding.)  WaterLarge Scale:  Harvest rainwater, either with a simple rain barrel for the garden or a system that purifies it for indoor use. Divert laundry and shower water (gray water) to the garden.Small Scale: ARE YOU STILL LETTING THE WATER RUN WHILE YOU BRUSH YOUR TEETH?!  CoolingLarge Scale:  Make use of landscaping to reduce AC-dependence. Plant tall, deciduous trees on the house&amp;#039;s south side to let in low winter sunlight and block out high, hot summer sun.Small Scale: Use the AC less; install a powerful, elegant old ceiling fan (vintagefans.com). Remind yourself that people with larger brains handle heat better.  MaterialsLarge Scale:  A full reno is the time to vote with your dollar. Spend a little more to support businesses creating sustainable flooring and countertops or reclaiming old ones.Small Scale:  If you must compulsively redecorate (we confess: We must), repurpose as much as you can and buy paints, grouts, and stains that specify low volatile organic compounds (VOCs). "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/art-design/a9934/home-design-the-new-white-house-318656/>