Robin Cape

Robin has found Asheville to be the perfect match for her artistic, creative and engaged spirit. She is often described by friends and family as a renaissance woman, she has and continues to, explore a wide range of activities to enrich this wonderful journey through life here on this planet that gives her so much joy. She is as happy in her garden as she was playing bass with local bands or working to make the community a healthier place.

Her first-hand experience remodeling and restoring properties has built a repertoire of skills that can help her clients create their own dream home! She's a crafter, cook, preserver, radical homemaker, graphic artist, writer, and advocate for the creative life. She also has the distinct pleasure of being mother and stepmother to a whole tribe of young people (5 of our own and their wonderful partners and children) who all live with 10 minutes of she and her husband Bruce. Bruce works as a physician at the Charles George VA Medical Center and has brought his passion for the humanities in service to wounded vets from the Vietnam Era. The men in the writing group that he co-founded have performed and written a moving tale of their healing in Brothers Like These.

Robin has spent her years in Asheville in service to the community by serving on boards of, and working for, local non-profits dedicated to improving local physical, environmental and social assets: Robin

Conceived of and was the champion and first liaison City Council member for the Sustainable Advisory Committee for Energy and the Environment (SACEE) for the City of Asheville.
Was the sole agent of Asheville Buncombe Sustainable Community Initiatives (ABSCI) as it designed, developed and stewarded Reading Riding and Retrofit (RRR), a project designed in coordination with a national organization, Applied Solutions, to mitigate the drivers of climate change. RRR won a $499,000 grant from the EPA to reduce greenhouse gases in Buncombe County Schools and introduce a culture of stewardship in the classrooms.
Oversaw the transformation of RRR to the NC Green Schools program and its transfer to the Catawba College Center for the Environment of the Environment.
Co-founded, championed and developed The Collider in an unused real estate asset in downtown to host and encourage the interaction of the scientists within NCEI and business and community entrepreneurs.
Sat on the board of directors for the Woodfin Water Board and oversaw the conservation of the Woodfin Watershed.
Elected to Asheville City Council, she helped infuse sustainability into City activities. In her time on City Council (2005-2009) she actively engaged in council committees and community boards: the Housing and Community Development committee, the HUB, (a countywide economic development coalition of community leaders), the City of Asheville Economic Development Committee, SACEE, a three year Progress Energy Advisory Council (CEAC) that set the groundwork for the current Energy Innovation Task Force.