Green Roof International House

A partnership between two friends, Green Roof International House is located in downtown Paducah, Kentucky, USA. Rachel lives in the house and Diane visits from Wisconsin. The house was built in 1886 and retains most of it historical elements. There are three rooms upstairs that are available for rent through Airbnb and Furnished Finders. The house is decorated with handmade crafts, textiles and memorabilia from around the world as both Diane and Rachel have visited many countries.

Green Roof is committed to promoting sustainability, diversity and creativity. Paducah is a Unesco Creative City and a hub for artists, musicians and other creatives. We see this as our strongest asset and welcome guests and programming that can build on this foundation. Green Roof is home to Artizan Made, a collective of online shops selling handmade, and to Creative PlaceMakers.

Languages and travel:

Diane has been to many countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. She is an avid knitter and especially enjoys knitting workshops and tours. Diane was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Micronesia when she was in her 20’s and maintains a special connection with that community. She has also explored the United States and has been to almost 50 of the states. Diane speaks English.

Rachel grew up as a missionary kid in Brazil (1962-1980). She spent a semester in Bogota, Colombia and another in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil, when she was in college. She traveled to Panama, Peru, Equador, Paraguay, Jamaica, Portugal, Spain, Germany, and Sweden. These days, she is pretty tied to Green Roof. Rachel speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Sustainability and diversity:

Green Roof welcomes people from all over the world and we have had the pleasure and delight to meet global travelers as they pass through Paducah. We are fortunate to live in a City that is a crossroads, with St. Louis, Nashville and Memphis less than 3 hours away.

We are working on ideas that will hopefully turn into employment projects that use waste as a valuable material. One example is using glass bottles to create garden walls and huts. Paducah does not recycle glass, so this would make a huge impact locally.

We have also been planting trees on the property and don’t use pesticides or insecticides. We have an area for a vegetable garden that will hopefully be fruitful at some point.

We recycle what we can and use tote bags to shop. We try to avoid plastic as much as possible.