ane Troughton’s first ‘eco epiphany’ came while working as
an industrial-relations consultant in Johannesburg. ‘I had it
all,’ she says, ‘but felt our lives were shallow and unhealthy.’
Her entrepreneur husband Greg Courtney agreed and suggested
moving to his home town of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. Jane set up
her consultancy there, the pair started a family, and then Jane had
epiphany number two – ‘Children change how you see the planet.’
She started an indigenous garden at their La Lucia home,
began growing food on the lawn beside the pool, and spearheaded
an award winning conservancy at the school of their children,
Caitlin and Peter, set in what had been a vast sugarcane field.
When Eskom began its rolling blackouts eight years ago, Jane had
epiphany number three: ‘I wanted us off grid and in harmony with
nature instead of increasing our carbon burden on the planet.’
With Greg’s backing and working to a strict budget Jane found
a 1940s house on a double stand in Durban North and began ‘an
extraordinary journey’ – demolishing and recycling it into a model
green home. She blogged about each step to ‘inspire, motivate and
inform others’ at gorgeousgreenhouse.wordpress.com. As she putsit, ‘We’re endeavouring to live with consciousness, using as much
green technology as possible and developing a gentler and kinder
way of being on the planet.’
Today their Gorgeous Green House is powered by solar energy
from 20 photovoltaic panels, shaded by a decorative aluminium
screen, and air-conditioned by whirligigs that suck cool air from
floor-level ventilation windows above natural outdoor pools.
A 20 000-litre tank stores harvested rainwater for all household
needs, after which the water is used once more to nurture the
sensational indigenous gardens. These include a vertical stand of
plants at the entrance, a rooftop garden off the upstairs master
bedroom, and a vegetable patch set with beehives and an owl
house. Their chemical-free swimming pool – filtered and
oxygenated by plants – is a haven for fish, shrimp and crabs.
‘I’m living my dream,’ Jane says. ‘It’s not been easy but I’m
excited that others can learn from our experiences and the
precedents we’ve set.’
The hardest part was negotiating her way through the new
South African building regulations and bringing builders andJ
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