Our Story

Over 25 Years of Green Home Building Leadership

Established in 1998 by brothers Mike and Chris Trolle, BPC Green Builders was one of the very first builders in Connecticut to specialize in high-performance, sustainable green homes.

Today, BPC is a worker-owned cooperative and widely recognized as the leading custom green builder in Connecticut and adjoining areas of New York state, completing 69 of the highest-performing and most energy-efficient custom home projects in New England, including 42 new homes and 27 deep energy renovations.

Learn More About the bPC Team Learn more about our process See what clients have to say about working with BPC

A Leading Authority on Green Home Building

Our work and expertise have been featured in: 

Consumer Publications

  • The New York Times
  • Connecticut Magazine
  • CPTV’s series “Connecticut’s Energy Future”
  • The Home Monthly
  • Connecticut Magazine
  • NewsTimes
  • Westfair Online 
  • Ridgefield Magazine Press
  • New Canaan News
  • The Litchfield County Times
  • Sierra Club Quinnehtukqut
  • Bedford & New Canaan Magazine

Trade Press

  • GreenBuilder
  • GreenBuilder – The Green Design Guide
  • Energy Design Update
  • Build with Propane, News
  • U.S. Department of Energy Challenge Home Case Studies
  • Green Home 2014 Annual Issue
  • Green Home 2012 Annual Issue
  • Green Home 2011 Annual Issue
  • Green Home 2009 Annual Issue

Training and Certifications

Our staff holds degrees, certifications and/or have been extensively trained in: 

  • Green Building
  • EPA Energy Star Construction
  • DOE Zero Energy Ready Homes
  • LEED for Homes
  • Passive House (Passivhaus)
  • Passive House PHIUS Standards 
  • Sustainability
  • Building Science
  • Energy Efficient Construction
  • Engineering
  • Real Estate Development
  • Performance Rating
  • Healthy Home Construction
  • Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Assessment
  • and more…

We are members of:

BPC Homes Earn Top Industry Awards and Certifications

BPC Green Homes have won numerous building industry awards and residential green building and healthy home-related certifications. Most homes we build or renovate earn more than one certification.

Governmental Certifications and Awards

Zero Energy Ready Home Certification

All BPC homes today are engineered to meet or exceed the US DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program certification standards.

Six-Time Winner of DOE National Housing Innovation Awards

ENERGY STAR and Indoor airPLUS Certifications

All homes BPC builds meet or exceed ENERGY STAR and Indoor airPLUS certification standards.

Green Building Organization Certifications and Awards

Passive House Institute US (PHIUS)

The following BPC Green Homes have been certified as Passive House Homes:

Connecticut Zero Energy Challenge, sponsored by the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund

Additionally, in 2020 BPC Green Builders, Inc. and its principals, Mike and Chris Trolle, were awarded the Peter Harding Service Award in recognition of BPC’s long history of building extremely energy-efficient, high-performance, near-zero energy and net-zero energy homes.

US Green Building Council (USGBC) – LEED for Homes

The USGBC named The Taft School Faculty Residence built by BPC as the Outstanding Single-Family Project in the US for 2015. It is Connecticut’s first building to achieve LEED Platinum certification under the Building Design and Construction rating system for Homes using the new and more stringent LEED v4.

Additional LEED for Homes certified projects include:

The Connecticut Green Building Council

  • New Colonial-style home (2015, “Award of Honor,” the CTGBC’s top residential award)
  • The Lawrence House (2013, Merit Award)
  • The Costigan House (2012, Merit Award)
  • The Kantor House (2010, named “The Most Intriguing Residence in Connecticut”)
  • New Saltbox Home (2008, named “The Most Intriguing Residence in Connecticut”)

Green Builder magazine

Townvibe

Home Builder Association Certifications and Awards

National Green Building Standard™ Emerald Certification, NAHB Research Center

HOBI Awards, sponsored by the Connecticut Home Builders Association

Health Association Certifications and Awards

American Lung Association Health House2000, New, super-insulated home in Roxbury (BPC is the first and only builder in Connecticut to complete a home meeting the rigorous requirements of ALA Health House program)

Established in 1998 by brothers Mike and Chris Trolle, BPC Green Builders was one of the very first builders in Connecticut to specialize in high-performance, sustainable green homes.

Today, BPC is a worker-owned cooperative and widely recognized as the leading custom green builder in Connecticut and adjoining areas of New York state, completing 69 of the highest-performing and most energy-efficient custom home projects in New England, including 42 new homes and 27 deep energy renovations.

Incorporated in 1998 by Mike Trolle

Mike’s background was in commercial real estate brokerage, not residential construction, let alone green building, which he quickly learned was technically demanding, much more so than the building codes at the time required. He learned the ropes by attending green building conferences around the country, where experts in the field of building science were presenting cutting-edge information regarding how to build high-performance homes that dramatically outperformed conventional homes in every possible way.

Mike purchased a twenty-acre parcel in Roxbury, which he subdivided into five lots, with plans to build modest speculative homes that incorporated the latest building science and environmental guidance to provide superior efficiency, comfort, IAQ, and durability using sustainable materials and cutting-edge construction assemblies. The homes would be third-party certified by Energy Star for New Homes (an EPA program), which no other local builder was doing at that time—and few are even to this day.

Building an ALA Health House

During this time, Mike attended an NAHB green building conference where he learned of the Health House certification program, an American Lung Association initiative which incorporated the latest building science and indoor air quality research into a comprehensive set of criteria for building homes that benefitted occupant health, as well as high performance. Mike thought this innovative approach could be a game-changer.

He engaged Bruce Coldham, of C&H Architects, one of a handful of architects who had pioneered green building in the US, who then introduced him to Bill Rock Smith, one of the few experienced green builders, who was available for consulting. Working with this team, an initial design was developed for an ALA Health House. Acting as the project manager, Mike completed construction in 2000, and the house was certified by both the Energy Star for New Homes and the Health House programs.

Mike reached out to local media to draw attention to his ground-breaking Health House, which was the first of its kind in both Connecticut and the northeast. There was extensive media interest, leading to feature articles in several local and regional newspapers, including a half-page article in the New York Times and a cover-story in Connecticut Magazine. Despite all of this media attention, the market response was tepid, although it did generate inquiries and a good number of people came for house tours.

Mike’s next marketing initiative was to send letters to 100+ allergists and pulmonologists in Connecticut, offering private tours of the Health House to explain and demonstrate the many strategies that could be utilized to help patients live symptom-free in their homes. Surprisingly, not a single doctor responded. (Not to be cynical, but helping patients to live symptom-free without medical or pharmaceutical assistance might not have been good for business!)

Eventually, the Health House did sell, and the marketing work did lead to the company’s first custom home projects. Mike went on to build two additional speculative homes, but none of the three were profitable. He realized that the market wasn’t ready for high performance, green speculative homes. It became clear that building and renovating custom homes for well-informed clients motivated by both the performance and sustainability attributes was the path forward.

Chris Trolle Joins BPC

Mike’s brother, Chris, joined the company in 2000. Chris was a licensed mechanical engineer with many years of consulting and construction management experience. Chris began by achieving certification as a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) rater, which qualified him to provide testing and inspection of new homes seeking Energy Star certification. It also qualified him to offer consulting services to both builders and homeowners. Most of this work was in New York where NYSERDA was offering incentives for certified homes. One of his clients was Spectrum Skanska, a large national builder, which he helped to define and improve the thermal envelopes of their new homes as well as to understand that the certified homes they were building could be heated and cooled with much smaller and less expensive heating and cooling systems. After several years of this work, Chris joined Mike, providing project management for new custom homes and deep energy retrofits.

The market for green homes was limited in the early 2000s, and the recession of 2008 presented an additional challenge, but Mike and Chris were offering a unique service, and there was little, if any, competition. The company had good and bad years, all the while developing a solid record of successfully completing third party certified green homes that were simply better than anything else being built in the area at this time. They continued attending national conferences where they were able to keep abreast of the many rapid advancements in building science that were leading to the construction of homes that continued to improve on every performance metric.

As new home certification programs with stricter standards were developed, Chris and Mike were typically among the pioneers to adopt them. In 2006, BPC completed a home that was certified under the USGBC LEED for Homes pilot program. In 2011, BPC completed one of the first homes to be certified as a DOE Zero Energy Ready Home. In 2013, BPC completed one of the first PHIUS certified Passive Houses in Connecticut, after completing Passive House Consultant training. Since then, many of BPC’s custom homes have achieved certification in all of these programs, many of them earning prominent industry awards, as well. In 2015, a new faculty home for the Taft School won the top national award from the USGBC for the year.

Growing the Company & Building for the Future

In more recent years, as the demand for high performance, sustainable homes has expanded, BPC has grown to meet the demand. Albert Jensen-Moulton joined in 2018 and now directs both strategic initiatives and human resources. Ben Bogie joined in 2020 and now heads up production, as well as directing outreach and education. Four additional project managers have been hired since then, as well as a project administrator.

As the company has grown, it has continued to evolve. BPC converted to a worker cooperative in 2023, with five employee members at this time, with all employees having the opportunity to become members after two years of employment. Processes have been developed to allow the company to manage the higher work volume efficiently. Strategic priorities include staying on the cutting edge of building science, diversifying the type of projects we manage, and finding ways to deal with the affordable housing crisis locally.

Green building has always been about performance, starting with the efficient use of energy, water, and materials, followed by a focus on occupant health and comfort, along with attention to reduced maintenance and enhanced durability. In recent years, the focus has turned to the embodied carbon in all aspects of the construction process. It’s clear that the use of materials with high embodied carbon will accelerate climate change, negating the environmental benefits of a high-performance home. This realization has motivated BPC’s rapid transition to the use of building materials with less embodied carbon and, to the greatest extent possible, to the use of natural plant-based materials that act as carbon sinks for the life of the home. This transition is emblematic of BPC’s commitment to staying on the cutting edge of both building science and sustainability.

Healthy Materials Advocate
Energy Ready Home
USGBC Member
USGBC CT
Passive House
Home Builders
AirPlus
Energy Star
LEED
Green Award
CONTACT US

BPC Green Builders
16 Bailey Avenue
Second Floor
Ridgefield, CT 06877

Phone: (203) 563-9909
Email: info@bpcgb.com

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