On a steep hill in Oakland sits a house, angular and modern and at the same time warm and welcoming. The floor-to-ceiling windows create a feeling of openness while the steel grating and concrete driveway build respect for the property. From the outside, it looks like a typical new home, a little flashy but not over the top. But the story this house has to tell is more than concrete and wood deep.

Located in Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood, Margarido House is on a tranquil and quiet street, a quick twenty-minute walk from BART. The surrounding streets and homes are a sunny, chic suburb. The houses are bigger than normal but not mansions and they seem traditional. Most of the houses are all the same, two-floors with an attic, big lawns and garages. Once in a while there is a house that has had a few renovations, a combination of modern and conventional. But at the middle of the hill on Rockridge Boulevard a completely modern and new home can be seen.

The Margarido House, the first new home in the country to be built according to tough green and sustainable standards, is a forty-seven hundred square-foot house with five bedrooms and five bathrooms that is taking sustainable architecture to the next level. It was completed in the summer of 2008, but already is the recipient of many awards, an LEED-H Platinum rating (the highest rating in sustainable design), and has people drooling at its design. Inspirational design, not lot location, is what Owner Mike McDonald, 43, of McDonald Construction and Development planned.

"What we want to do is incredible design and if I have done my job right, you're inspired by this house and find little and big ideas to use in your house," McDonald says.

By using a design-build approach to the house, McDonald and his team created a streamlined construction of the home that minimized unnecessary paperwork and time and created a team of professionals to collectively plan the home. Then, with the design conceptualized, they spent a year looking for a lot. The house now sits upon one of the few lots formerly demolished by the 1991 Oakland firestorm. The short walking distance to BART and shops are what attracted McDonald into purchasing the lot in the spring of 2006. By summer 2008, the construction was complete.

The completed design of the house is majestic. The home is open and warm, not what one would associate with a "green" home; recycled newspaper furniture and plastic bag art is not here. In fact, if it was not pointed out to you, you would think there was nothing "green" about this home. With a Zen-garden and fountain off the entry, it looks so normal. It also feels like it is one entity. There is no separation of one room from the other. Everything is open and the natural sunlight creeps into all the dark corners reducing the need for artificial lighting. The best feature: the views. From the first floor patio, Twin Peaks tower can easily be identified. From the master bedroom and roof garden, the Bay Bridge and Transamerica Building are impossible to miss.

"I like the blur of the inside and out," team member Mark Rogero of Concreteworks says. "It's hard to achieve a number of the experiences you get with that, but I was really pushing for the ability to live inside and outside."

Two, two thousand-gallon reclamation tanks collect rainwater from a roof garden and from the driveway and filter the water to be used for landscaping. The home does not have an HVAC system; instead it uses three different uses of airflow. First, it utilizes the cool and shaded air that comes from the side of the house that is nestled close to a hill. It takes this cool air and pumps it into the house to keep temperatures low. Second, it uses fans in the second level to pump hot air out. Third, the design of the house with the many windows creates a cross-breeze to keep the house cool and comfortable.

"The ultimate of what we achieved is what I wanted: to combine high design and high sustainability," McDonald says.

All of this air control is managed using the home's automation system, which was installed by Jean-Paul Fisher of Jean Paul Fisher Inc. A touch-screen in most rooms lets the McDonalds, who have lived in the house about a year-and-a-half, control music, lighting, heating and cooling in every room, security, and will soon have an intercom feature. For a family with two children under ten years old, the single "all-off" button comes in handy to turn off all lights in the house.

"This is our top example of a high-end house that is sustainable but it would be more sustainable if it were half the size. But we wanted five bedrooms and five bathrooms and a certain architecture with lots of natural light and sustainable features and that is what we built," McDonald says.

For McDonald, sustainable design is normal and the only way to succeed in the designing world. With new products and technologies being created constantly, Margarido House is the beginning of what is to come and from the looks of this house, there will be a lot of amazing architecture and design in the near future. McDonald and his team are already working on a Pure House in Sausalito to create a healthy and nontoxic environment for the owners. With this house, he is aiming for European originated Passive House Certification which is a step above LEED and focuses on energy efficiency in buildings, especially in the designing and envelope of the building, not simply appliances.

But for the future of Margarido House? Well it has a new twist to add to its list - it is now on the market. The house's expected asking price will be around $6 million and is to be offered for sale later this fall. For more information on the sale of the house, contact Mike McDonald at info@margaridohouse.com.