Katrina cottages: tiny, Lilliputian, cute, beachy, adorable - and not for sale just yet

From the October 2 Christian Science Monitor:

OCEAN SPRINGS, MISS. – A model home here that gives Katrina's displaced an alternative to trailer living is starting to take the country by storm.

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.

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."

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette has a favorable editorial (Feb 2006)

MARIANNE CUSATO stands about 5-foot-nothin' with a headful of shoulder-length black curls that won't stay in place when she talks. She has the nervous energy symptomatic of youth, raw talent, and unleashed want-to. Miss Marianne claims to be 31, but she'd be hard-pressed to buy liquor without an ID.

A Manhattan-based architect from Anchorage, Alaska, by way of South Bend (Go Irish!), Ms. Cusato talks so fast a Southerner needs subtitles.

Say again? Pardon?

She's kind enough to repeat herself. Repeatedly. In fact, she just did, telling us once more that we can't call her an architect yet; officially, she's a designer. Okay. Yes ma'am.

She's also got visual aids. That helps.

She's holding up designs for something she calls the Katrina Cottage. Cute as the dickens. All beachy angles, peaks and front porches. Looks like something out of Adorable Coastal Living for the Incredibly Wealthy magazine.

It's not. What the Katrina Cottage is, is an alternative to the FEMA trailer. No joke. And get this: It costs less. Where the woefully inadequate, tiny, yack-ugly, hospital-white trailer preferred by the Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency runs us taxpayers about $75,000 per, Ms. Cusato thinks her cottage could be manufactured for about 45 grand. Or less.

Lowe's has plans to sell kits retail, but you can't order them yet. Home Depot passed on the opportunity.

Comments

[Alan Gutierrez]

"the woefully inadequate, tiny, yack-ugly, hospital-white trailer preferred by the Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency"

Don't forget formadahyde filled.

The FEMA trailer is simply horrible.