When Matt and Kelly Grocoff first bought the Victorian-era Gauss house, it was their dream house . . . complete with lead paint, asbestos siding, zero insulation (except for a layer of newspaper in the attic dated 1902), a 1957 gas furnace, a fridge from 1989, and carpet over the old heart pine floors.

Matt was inspired by the vision of Ray Anderson, the self-proclaimed “radical industrialist” and Chairman and Founder of Interface, Inc. the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial carpets. In 1994, after reading Paul Hawken’s “The Ecology of Commerce” Ray experienced an epiphany and challenged his company to begin a journey toward a positive environmental footprint. Matt founded the THRIVE Collaborative and set out on a Mission Zero of his own to create elegant, nature-rich homes that harvest 100% of their own energy, 100% of their own water, create zero waste and are restorative to the communities in which they inhabit. 

In 2015, the home became the first building in Michigan and the first in a cold climate to achieve Net Zero Energy Certification under the strict standards of the Living Building Challenge.