Boom Nation: Prefab Chic

Feb. 9, 2006 — -- Behind an old hog barn in rural Missouri, just over an hour south of St. Louis, lies the unusual home of architect Rocio Romero.

It's the very antithesis of the barn -- Romero's home is modern, angular, silver. It's as firmly rooted in this century as the barn is in the last.

She designs and lives in what she hopes will be the next generation of stylish yet affordable homes. But there's a twist. Romero's homes are prefabricated -- shipped to customers in a dozen crates and then assembled on-site.

Each house consists of four walls sheathed in corrugated exterior panels called Galvalume, carbon steel covered with aluminum zinc alloy. The houses come with a 30-year warranty and never need painting, Romero says. When they're dirty you just hose them down. The homes also have lots of windows -- she says the ratio is 50:50 -- to bring the outdoors inside. Each home's modern interior is made up of airy, clean, white spaces divided into the usual living arrangements: living room, dining area, kitchen, two bedrooms and two baths.

Romero hopes the trend will catch on. "There's a lot of people in the modern prefab movement," she says, "and hopefully we'll make a difference."

The words "prefab" and "housing" may conjure images of trailer parks, but Romero sees something entirely different. "I learned that through prefabrication you have more control over the craftsmanship, and you have more control over the costs," she says.

It's that cost control that allows Romero to put a mobile homelike price tag on her decidedly upscale designs. Romero offers two house models: The 1,150-square-foot LV (for Laguna Verde, which is where her first prefab house, built in Chile for her parents, is located) and the 1,440-square-foot LVL. The LV kit runs $32,900; the LVL is $40,050 -- less than you might pay for your typical luxury car. Romero estimates that having a contractor put it together and finish the interior runs between $100 and $150 per square foot, depending on your taste.

The cost is so low because Romero's kits provide only the basics. "If you're looking from the outside, everything on the exterior is included except for the windows and the roofing material," she explains. "That's the simplest way to understand it."

Chris Wurster and his wife are building one of Romero's prefab homes beside a river in upstate New York. He's in awe of the quick transformation: "One weekend we came up and there was a deck, and the next weekend we came up, there was a house. It truly is a house in a box."

Wurster estimates his house will cost only $120 per square foot, rather than the $300 plus for a comparable custom-built home.