[StBernard] Stylish cottage for Katrina country is a big hit

[Westley Annis]

Stylish cottage for Katrina country is a big hit
A well-designed home for under $50,000? This tiny house designed for the
battered Gulf Coast will be sold by Lowe's, and is expected to draw buyers
from all over.

By Ron Scherer, The Christian Science Monitor 

The Katrina cottage -- with living quarters about the size of a McMansion
bathroom -- is now appealing to people well beyond the flood plain.
Californians want to build one in their backyards to use for rental income
to help with the mortgage payment. Modestly paid kayakers in Colorado see it
as a way to finally afford a house. Elsewhere, people envision building one
so a parent can live nearby.

A new niche
Flying in the face of a "big house" trend, designers of these tiny abodes
seem to have found a new housing niche. Some experts cite an interest by
some Americans in downsizing their habitats, a reaction to the supersized
home, and note the challenge of heating and cooling a big house at a time
when family budgets are flat. Others note that changing demographics -- more
empty nesters and single adults -- may mean a timely debut of the
Lilliputian homes. 

"It's resonating with people because it's a market that did not exist," says
Marianne Cusato, a New York-based designer who drew up the plans for the
Katrina cottage. "In the past, you had to go either to an apartment or a
trailer."

Commercialization of the concept is limited -- but that is about to change.
Late this year, perhaps as soon as this month, Lowe's, a national hardware
and building-supply company, intends to begin selling the plans and
materials for four models in 30 stores in the Gulf Coast region.

The "Lowe's Katrina Cottage" offerings range from a two-bedroom,
544-square-foot model to a three-bedroom, 936-square-foot house. The
cottages will cost $45 to $55 per square foot to build, Lowe's estimates,
meaning the smallest would run about $27,200 and the largest $46,800.
Estimates do not include the cost of the foundation, heating and cooling,
and labor.

"We're starting on the Gulf Coast, where the original idea came from, but as
soon as we feel the logistics are worked out we could go national," says
Cusato, whose Web site has received more than 7,000 inquiries since January.
"We want to be sure that when we say it's available, we're 100% sure we can
deliver."

A concept that could spread
If Lowe's is successful, it's likely other companies will offer their own
designs. "There is such a huge opportunity, when you talk about the number
of houses that need to be built in Mississippi and Louisiana, that I think a
lot of folks are looking at this type of concept," says Dan Tresch, director
of governmental affairs at James Hardy Building Products, which provides the
siding for Cusato's cottages.

One of those other companies won't be Home Depot, the Atlanta-based supplier
of building materials. "We assessed the opportunity but chose to pass on
selling them," says spokesman Tony Wilbert.

Although Lowe's has not started marketing the houses yet, the original
Katrina cottage has been featured on television and in newspaper articles.
As a result, Cusato gets queries every day from around the world. Some of
the e-mails and letters envision the cottages as college dormitories,
military housing, homeless shelters, zookeeper's offices and rental
properties.

Among the recent inquiries was one from Keith Rogerson, a city councilor
from Bridgeport, Conn. "We have lots that are too small for a .
single-family, detached household, so the idea is to bring in these
extremely attractive dwellings to provide affordable housing," says
Rogerson. "We're also looking at reorienting the zoning so we can put them
in clusters to stave off ghettoizing the city."

The Katrina cottage concept inspired Norman Bradshaw, a retired deputy
sheriff in Tallahassee, Fla., to call Lowe's. He's thinking about moving to
a farm in Georgia. "What I'm trying to find is something affordable in the
$65,000-to-$75,000 range," says Bradshaw. "Right now, the only thing you can
afford is a trailer, and they are so flimsy you can put your fist right
through a wall." If Lowe's follows though with the original design, Bradshaw
says, he'll buy one.

Urban planners and architecture critics are generally enthusiastic.
"Designers have done a good job with toasters and cars, and now they have
done housing -- and it couldn't have come at a better time," says Anthony
Flint at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think tank in Cambridge,
Mass.

Architect Sarah Susanka, author of "The Not So Big House," calls it "a
charming, tiny house with character."

The cottage, though almost doll-size, manages not to feel claustrophobic in
large part because Cusato has included a wide porch. "If you live in a small
house, you need a proper outdoor room," Cusato says. "In addition to making
the house larger, it engages you with your neighbors."

Ready for hurricanes and add-ons
Cusato's design also calls for steel frames and James Hardy's
fiber-cement-board siding. It's rated to withstand a hurricane with
140-mile-per-hour winds. The siding makes it termite-resistant,
noncombustible and immune to rot. One intangible aspect of the house: It is
designed to be easy to add on to.

The idea for the cottage came during a planning session in Mississippi. Gov.
Haley Barbour had asked Andreas Duany, a Miami urban planner with the firm
Duany Plater-Zyberk, to participate in the post-Katrina Mississippi Renewal
Forum. There, Duany challenged designers to come up with an alternative to
the trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Cusato's design
was picked as the winning effort.

But the concept didn't really take off until January, when the cottage made
its debut -- almost by happenstance -- at the International Builders Show in
Orlando, Fla. Susanka was set to build a small, modular show house for the
event, but her sponsor pulled out. Duany suggested that Cusato's cottage go
in its place -- and it was an instant hit with developers, who clamored for
the plans.

The house was then trucked to Ocean Springs, Miss., where thousands of
people have explored its confines. Cusato sees the cottage as one way to
help the region recover. "If you give people a decent place to live, they
will want to settle in," she says. "The most sustainable thing you can do is
build something that everyone loves and everyone wants to keep."