For years, Lisa Barzel could mark the end of the workday by a familiar ritual: the soft thud of her husband Dan’s briefcase on the counter, followed by the metallic clatter of aluminum and glass spilling onto the surface. Inside were Dan’s finds—discarded bottles, stray cans, the occasional crumpled cardboard sleeve—that he’d pick up off sidewalks, in parking lots and in any public space he was passing through. “Sometimes it was pretty gross,” Lisa says, laughing. “He’s just rabid about the environment.”
For Dan, that small daily act was about shaping a future he can live with, one choice at a time. On a grander scale, his passion for the environment is reflected in the Element House, the couple’s spacious residence in Oyster Bay Landings, which is one of the highest-rated sustainable homes in the United States.
The home doesn’t announce itself with spectacle. Unlike more spaceship-like modern houses—alabaster monoliths with Star Wars-esque facades—that have popped up around Sarasota, Element House feels less like a crash landing and more like a natural extension of its surroundings, settling into its waterfront site with a studied restraint…