It’s a small, small, small, small, small, world
Bigger isn’t always better – especially when you’re trying to get on to the property ladder in a struggling economy. By Emily Wax.
STEP INTO an alleyway in the northeast Washington neighbourhood known as Stronghold, and you will see a vegetable patch, a campfire, a view of the Capitol and a cluster of what neighbours call ‘‘those tiny people, building their tiny houses’’.
The people aren’t really tiny, but their homes are – 15 to 20 square metres of living space, some with gabled roofs, others with bright cedar walls, compact bathrooms and cosy sleeping lofts that add up to living spaces that are smaller than the walkin closets in a suburban McMansion.
‘‘This is the dream,’’ says Rin Westcott, 28, who is helping help her friend Lee Pera with a tiny-house raising.
Pera, 35, wore safety goggles as she treated the cedar boards of her ‘‘little house in the alleyway’’, one of three under construction in what is thought to be one of the country’s first tinyhouse model communities.
If these affordable homes that maximise every inch of interior space and look like well-constructed playhouses, are the dream, they represent a radically fresh version of what it takes to make Americans happy.
Tiny homes first drew national attention when the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co launched the concept in 2000. The idea gained visibility when it was featured in several national magazines and, in 2007, became the focus of the Tiny House Blog, established by selfproclaimed ‘‘lover of tiny spaces’’ Kent Griswold.
In these small homes, some on wheels, there are no kitchen islands, three-car garages or living rooms that are never lived in. In fact, their increasing popularity could be seen as a denunciation of conspicuous consumption and a rejection of the idea that more is, well, more.
The group behind Stronghold’s tinyhouse community calls itself Boneyard Studios. ‘‘As property values and rents rise across the city, we want to showcase this potential option for affordable housing,’’ the group writes on its website. ‘‘We decided to live the questions: Can we build and showcase a few tiny homes on wheels in a DC urban alley lot? . . . Not in the woods, but in a true community, connected to a neighbourhood? Yes, we think.’’
There’s one problem: the city’s zoning laws don’t allow residential dwellings on alley lots unless they are a minimum of 10 metres wide, or roughly the width of a city street. Washington is currently discussing lifting the restriction. So, as Boneyard Studios continues to advocate more progressive zoning laws, it is using the property to showcase what could be.
‘‘We want to inspire thinking about this as a possibility in the district,’’ says Brian Levy, 37, one of Boneyard’s founding members, who is building his tiny home in Stronghold but currently lives in a rowhouse.
Although the diminutive homes are made of high-quality materials, they are priced for a flagging economy. They sell for US$ 20,000 to US$ 50,000 ($ 24,1300–$ 60,300) less than the deposit on a two-bedroom apartment.
‘‘They’re a statement that no one needs to be trapped in a mortgage they can’t afford in a house that’s too big for them anyway,’’ says Amy Lynch, a consultant with BridgeWorks, am company that studies generational trends.
Lynch says tiny houses signal the end of America’s love affair with enormous homes.
‘‘The baby boomers raised their children. Now, they’re looking at all this stuff they have and thinking, ’What has meaning for me now?’ Plus, these tiny houses are small enough that you can clean – actually clean – them.’’
Here in Stronghold, the tiny houses also signal a culture clash between generations with different ideas about which American dream to aspire to.
Jay Austin sipped Darjeeling tea as he looked over his construction plans. Austin, 23, sees the tiny home he’s building as perfect for Generation Y — underemployed, credit-crisis kids who know they will probably never achieve the ‘‘Mad Men’’-era American ideal of a one-income family with a large house in the suburbs, two kids and two cars.
‘‘I saved for four years for a down payment. Then, I realised I could buy a whole house for that money,’’ says Austin, who works in planning for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. ‘‘These also give us the luxury of mobility; if I need to move for another job, I don’t have to pack a single bag.’’
Market researchers
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first- generation immigrant groups and middle-aged adults in the working and lower-middle classes are still traditionalists, often aspiring to larger homes in the suburbs where there are good schools, which are seen as the most direct path into the middle and upper classes. Their children, however, want to move back to the cities.
From 1950 to 2000, the size of the average American house increased by 230 per cent, but home sizes have been declining since 2007, according to The Small Spaces Trend, a March 2011 report by the Atlanta-based marketing firm Kleber and Associates.
The 1980s were all about ‘‘me architecture and big-hair houses’’, where space was valued over style and location, says Monty Hoffman, chief executive and founder of PN Hoffman, one of Washington’s largest apartment builders.
Today, Hoffman says, micro apartments are seen by many developers as the future of urban centres.
‘‘ It’s no longer about impressing your friends with your huge 1980s castle, it’s more about your lifestyle. What restaurants and fitness centres and community life can you walk to? It’s not about driving everywhere and staying inside and spending hours watching TV,’’ Hoffman says.
It’s hard to say how many tiny houses have been built nationally, but Jay Shafer, founder of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co, says he has sold more than 1500 sets of plans. Shafer’s selfpublished Small House Book has sold steadily since it came out four years ago.
During his first five years, Shafer says, he sold 10 sets of plans per year. But tiny houses’ popularity took off after the housing bust and economic downturn in 2008.
‘‘Americans still like our stuff big and cheap, so a 100-square-foot [10 square metre] house is not for everyone or big families. But people in tiny homes save a ton of money on heating,’’ Shafer says.
Shafer recently moved from his 10sqm house to a ‘‘ by comparison palatial’’ 46sqm home after his wife had their second child.
Despite the fact that tiny houses are tiny, affordable-housing advocates are researching the possibility that attractive micro homes could one day complement or replace stigmatised trailer parks and low- income housing, especially in places such as Washington, where they could be built in unused vacant spaces such as alleys.
Brandon Pilarski, 36, a waiter, and his partner, Leigh Anne Rochelle, 28, a waitress, are living with her parents in Loudoun, Virginia.
‘‘Just knowing that I don’t have to wait 20 years to have a house paid off is really wonderful,’’ says Rochelle, who is working on whittling down her large amount of clothing so it will fit in their new tiny house.
But just in case, ‘‘we might keep little storage at my parents’ place’’.
Their dream house may be tiny, but they still live in America, after all.
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