New homes pack lots of amenities in a small space
When pondering how to construct smaller homes that young adults and renters could afford, home builder Tom Hignite turned his attention from the land to the sea – cruise ships, to be exact.
He studied how the cabins in cruise ships were able to shoehorn essentials of living into a small space, then figured out ways to incorporate some elements – such as built-in bunk beds and wooden lockers instead of closets – into a house containing a little more than 1,000 square feet.
The result is what Hignite, owner of Milwaukee’s Miracle Homes, calls the “Mi-Pad” – a home with three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and a fireplace, for as little as $89,000.
“They’re contemporary in look,” he says. “They are little bit more in size than a garage. But they’re extraordinarily compact, using cruise ship technology and cruise ship design architecture to create cabins instead of bedrooms. Some of the bedrooms are 6 feet by 9 feet and they sleep two.”
Hignite’s houses pack lots of amenities in a small space. One model includes a 10- by 12-foot attic play loft for children. Master bedrooms are shaped to handle queen-size beds. High ceilings help to blunt the smallness of the homes, which, facing the road, are only 26.5 feet wide. Patios are out the back door.
Although construction of houses the size of the Mi-Pad was common during the 1950s in many suburbs, houses got bigger and bigger in the years that followed. Now, such huge homes have become harder to sell in a weak housing market and in an atmosphere of high unemployment and wide-scale foreclosures.
“We kind of looked at repo prices and decided to create a product line that would compete with that sort of repo price area of $90,000 to $150,000 – and get you a new home,” Hignite says.
The final cost of a Mi-Pad varies depending on what’s included and where the lot is located. One model can be developed to have five bedrooms, Hignite says.
“These are targeted at renters. There’s a one-car attached garage,” he says. “They are meant for people who have a no-car garage right now. There’s a large marketplace in rentals that could segue into this for the same cost as rent.”
Mike Ruzicka, president of the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors, says Hignite’s homes represent a “back to the future” scenario because small homes were built en masse in the post World War II era.
The Mi-Pad houses on Gates Street in Mount Pleasant, Wis. – which include extra features and finished spaces beyond the base-price models – are the only two in existence so far. Hignite says he wants to see if they catch on before building any more on speculation.
“It’s a launch, and we’re looking to see whether the public will accept it, because there haven’t been 1,000-square-foot houses built in many years,” he says.