Solar-Powered Property

What: Four bedrooms, three baths in 3,650 square feet on 70 acres.

Where: Goodrich, Mich., 55 miles northwest of Detroit.

Amenities: 1,500 feet of lake frontage. Three-hole bent-grass golf course with stocked pond and Tiki bar. Ten-to-30-foot ceilings, skylights, greenhouse/Jacuzzi room. Twenty-foot waterfall. Barn with apartment overlooking lake. Multi-leveled decking around house.

Asking Price: $2.499 million.

Opening Bid*: $2 million.

Agent: James Weiker (owner). Phone: 908-730-0522

Due Diligence: Retired optometrist James Weiker designed and built this passive-solar home mostly by himself in 1992, working from a design by architect Alexander Wade. The home faces south, with Lake Hasler in the back and the three-hole golf course Dr. Weiker designed around a manmade pond in the front. The pond, with an island in the middle, is stocked with bass, bluegill and trout, and is large enough to jet ski on. As part of its solar design, the home slopes downward from the front to the back, with the rear of the house bermed in to shelter it from winter winds. Other solar features: thick insulation in the walls and ceilings, and unglazed, heat-absorbing quarry tile on the floors. The home is wheelchair accessible, but to get to the property itself requires crossing the river (Hasler Inlet) that runs through the 2/3-mile-long driveway (there's a gated bridge). Dr. Weiker, now retired, spends about half the year in Brazil and says he'd like to simplify his life, and spend less time taking care of the golf course. In addition to being a residence, he says, the home could be used by a club or as an executive retreat.

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*The opening bid is Weekend Journal's estimate of a reasonable starting point for negotiations to buy the property, based on past sales, prevailing market conditions and interviews with local real-estate experts.

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