A Change in the Wind
Photo: Nathan Kirkman
Gold records are one sign of success in the music industry. But as Frank Mauceri, who co-owns Smog Veil Records with his wife, Lisa, wryly points out, "that's really hard to do with the underground rock groups we handle." Nonetheless, the Mauceris have gone gold. In October, they managed to become the first in Illinois to earn gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED for Homes) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. It might have been easier to produce a gold record.
The Mauceris' renovation had to satisfy 125 pages of LEED for Homes requirements—not to mention city zoning ordinances that make it challenging to implement novel ideas like ten-foot-tall wind turbines on your roof. "It took hours of dickering," says Michael Wilkinson of Wilkinson Blender Architecture, "but the city's Department of Zoning finally revised code for us." The Mauceris' unique project also incorporates photovoltaic solar panels, a green roof, geothermal heating and cooling, and recycled materials that include the couple's surplus vinyl records, which they crushed in a blender and added to the terrazzo-floor aggregate.
The project was a natural progression for the Mauceris, who are clearly intrepid types. In 1991, when Frank was finishing law school but wanted to "do music licensing and publishing instead of the lawyer thing," the newly minted Cleveland couple started their own label. By the time they moved from Reno to Chicago in 2005 to be closer to their families, they had decided "to embrace sustainable practices in our business and lives," Frank explains.
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