Single-family residence is world’s first to receive new industry certification for promoting health, well-being and climate resilience.
To environmentalists, LEED is an important acronym. Established by the U.S. Green Building Council, an international network of architects, developers, and planners, it stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The Council, established in 1994, lists 197,000 LEED projects worldwide.
Move over LEED and make way for WELL.
WELL building standards, created in 2014 and until now applied to commercial buildings only, are primarily about the people who occupy buildings. WELL (not an acronym) is shorthand for the WELL Building Standards, which, as defined by the International WELL Building Institute, offer a roadmap “for creating and certifying spaces that advance human health and well-being.”
WELL is about the environment, but it’s also about creating conditions for physical and mental health for people who occupy environmentally sensitive buildings.
LEED is more established and better-known than WELL, but if the work of a team of designer-architects based in Coconut Grove is any indication, that’s about to change.
The team, headed by Ted Caplow and Nathalie Manzano, who are married and live in Coconut Grove with their five children, recently built the first WELL-certified residence in the world.

The 2,595-square-foot house, which they’ve dubbed CM1, is located in the Silver Bluff neighborhood at 2662 SW 32nd Court. To achieve the rigorous WELL certification, the project met a long list of criteria such as natural light exposure, thermal comfort, air and water quality, sound levels, dedicated fitness and wellness spaces, and more.
Elevated one story above a parking, utility, and recreational area, the CM1 design anticipates sea level rise and flooding. The walls and insulation are constructed to minimize humidity and mold, with no drywall, ductless air conditioning, nontoxic finishes, operable windows throughout, solar panels on the roof, and landscaping that requires minimal watering.
But healthy living – at least in the CM1 iteration – comes at a price. The home is currently on the market for $2.6 million, or about $1,000 per square foot. Two blocks away a comparably sized, newly constructed home is listed at $1.575 million, or $626 per square foot. CM1 is self-funded. Caplow and Manzano have used it to explore a variety of building strategies. Profit was not their main motive.
Caplow, 54, and Manzano, 41, both of whom had children by previous marriages, met 10 years ago in Coconut Grove when they were both working on the Science Barge, a Frost Science Museum floating marine science and education center. Both had worked previously in New York City in similar ecologically oriented fields.
The Barge, moored on Biscayne Bay near the Frost Science Museum, which was still under construction, hosted 3,000 students in its first year. In 2017, Hurricane Irma brought it to an abrupt end.
Newly married, Caplow and Manzano hatched a plan to build a new and innovative company, Caplow Manzano, Inc., that now has a staff of 12 with offices on Virginia Street in Coconut Grove. Their CM1 WELL house is just one of several the company has in various stages of development and permitting.

Caplow, a native New Yorker, has degrees in environmental engineering from Princeton and mechanical engineering from Columbia. Throughout his career, he says, he’s been intrigued by the boundaries of urban livability and sustainability. Living in New York City for nearly two decades, he became frustrated with how removed urban life was from the natural world. “In New York, you have to travel for an hour to be close to nature,” he says. He began experimenting with ways to change the paradigm.
His entrepreneurial achievements include a nonprofit that teaches students about hydroponic farming and a for-profit company that uses indoor farming methods to supply vegetables to grocery outlets. While in New York, he developed a prototype of Miami’s Science Barge.
“Miami is kind of a sixth borough,” he says. “I was an early adopter, and now we have an influx of New Yorkers. I’m an optimist about the future of Miami. From the day I got here, I’ve been committed to thinking about the future, about problem solving, not just climate change but also the general efficiency and sustainability of society.”
Manzano is a Miami native who, after graduation from FIU with a B.A. in political science and a master’s in public administration, went on to leadership positions focused on public health and environmental sustainability in nonprofit and government settings, including the City of Miami, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the National Hispanic Health Foundation.
Although she and Caplow never met while in New York, their partnership on science and environmental projects in Miami was a natural fit. It was Manzano who raised the funding (from the Knight Foundation) for the Science Barge project. She then became its executive director until Hurricane Irma came along.
Fast forward seven years to widespread recognition resulting from the WELL announcement, led by several articles in professional journals and an April 2024 story in the Miami Herald that presents the structure’s innovations in detail.

“What characterizes our work then and now is how you get things done in a community,” says Caplow. “Now we’re dealing with housing, zoning, and public works. Back then we were developing an education program on the waterfront downtown. We had to interact with the institutions around downtown. Nathalie is very good at that. We learned not to try to create new rules. We want to work within the existing codes and zoning. We want to work within the envelope but make the house better.”
Says Manzano, for the WELL house, “The zoning allowed us to build two townhouses, but in reality, we underbuilt the lot. We wanted to point out that this is the way we need to be thinking about the future if we want to continue to live here. We have to adapt to future realities. After Irma, we were thinking about how housing is unsustainable in Florida, how we’d been building in a way that doesn’t really make sense for the climate and the environment.”
Caplow says he was shocked when he arrived in Florida to learn how far the state lagged others in solar energy. “We wanted to make sure we’d be getting more rooftop solar. We wanted to be ready for floods, to elevate buildings. All these general sustainability issues are important. How toxic is your house? How well insulated is it? How much electricity are you using? Those ideas were the bread and butter of our careers, and now we have public health as well.”
Living in Center Grove is an important asset. Both walk to work, and their children attend easily reachable Coconut Grove schools.
Their goal? Nothing less than changing the way housing is built in the tropics.
“We’re building the future of Miami as we see it,” says Caplow. “We’re thinking long-term. This is a city that’s so new that people don’t really think long-term. Now we have a few houses around Miami that are 100 years old. Not many, but a few. If they could build a house then that would last 100 years, we should still be able to do that. Will you have to replace the plumbing? Maybe, maybe not. But if you’re going to replace it, you have to be able to get to it. “If we can make a house twice as sustainable as a conventional house, the house is going to have a much lower environmental impact. If you’re going to make a house that will last 100 years, you’re going to live in it. And then maybe your children and their children will live in it, maybe somebody else’s children. That’s why this house [in Silver Bluff] got so much attention.”