sustainability
the house
We believe that the greenest building is one that already exists. That said, The Arrival needed a lot of work before we could welcome guests, and that required the use of a great deal of new building materials. So, we made every effort to salvage and reuse everything that we could, and buy reclaimed materials wherever possible. The floors in our kitchen are from a mill in New England, while the brick pathways around the front and side of the house are from our very own decommissioned chimneys. Many of the bluestone pavers that make up our patio we dug up ourselves ahead of a demolition project. We scoured estate sales for secondhand pieces to furnish our guestrooms.
As a result, every part of the house has its own story.
the garden
We take our responsibility as land stewards seriously. We wanted our landscaping plan to focus on native plants, soil regeneration, and low water consumption. Where we did opt for grass we planted what some locals affectionately call a “Cape Cod lawn”, a mix of native grasses, clovers, and groundcovers that changes in appearance from season to season but uses no fertilizers or irrigation.
We have punctuated spaces with no foot traffic with mini wildflower meadows that attract birds and beneficial pollinators. And with the Cape being on the Monarch butterfly migration path, we always make sure to plant milkweed.
Our micro-orchard flanks the front of the property, where we have employed the permaculture practice of creating guilds of companion plants around the bases of our apple and pear trees. These guilds support our fruit trees as they grow toward maturity and start producing.
our practices
You won’t find plastic water bottles here, but we provide filtered water and refillable glass carafes.
No single use plastic in the bathrooms either. The toiletries we provide are cruelty-free and packaged responsibly.
Our menu is plant-forward and based on seasonality. We grow our own vegetables and raise chickens.
No food waste either! Everything is composted in our 55 gallon composter, which feeds our garden beds.