Seniors, Retirement, Modular, Vacation Homes

With 400-square-foot floor plans, these tiny homes look like playhouses for adults.

However, able to withstand hurricane winds; equipped like a hotel suite, studio or small apartment; site- or factory-built in less than a month; and selling for around $50,000, the homes are anything but child's play.

They are called "park trailers" or "park models" and the current darling of the set is the Katrina Cottage model, named for the home-wrecking hurricane that prompted its use.

Park trailers have been around for decades, dotting recreational vehicle (RV) parks, campgrounds and other more rural vacation spots where owners place them and travelers rent them out as alternatives to tents and RVs. More and more owners are buying a patch of dirt beneath them and using the trailers as vacation housing -- play houses for adults, after all.

In 2005, the national shipment of park trailers, 10,000 of them, was up 10 percent over 2004 figures, according to the Recreational Park Trailer Industry Association (RPTIA). Only 100,000 of them have been built since the 1970s. They generally cost less than $50,000, with an average price in the $40,000 range.

"Actually it's a big business in many parts of the country. Places that come to mind are many of the Great Lakes, Pocono Mountains, Smoky Mountains, and Big Bear, CA. Often people owned the land, because land was cheap in rural ares and the cheapest structure was a manufactured home," said Christine Karpinski, real estate investor, author and director of Owner Advocacy for HomeAway.com, a network of vacation rental listing websites.

The Katrina Cottage model gained overnight celebrity status because it is more aesthetically appealing and more durable temporary housing alternative than those grim-looking FEMA trailers that popped up throughout the Gulf Coast region after the hurricane.

Now the industry is offering the durable affordable housing option as permanent shelter, if only as second and vacation homes or stand-by emergency shelters, thanks in large part to the Katrina Cottage.

The industry says, much as vacation home buyers choose a condo, a park trailer is available at a fraction of the cost.

"During the National Association of Real Estate Editors' conference, the architect (New York City's, Marianne Cusato of Cusato Cottages, LLC) who designed the Katrina Cottage, was touting them as doubling as vacation homes. I'm betting this company saw how well the Katrina Cottage went over and it's piggy-backing off of that," said Karpinski.

A Katrina Cottage model was also unveiled at the International Builders Show in Orlando, FL, in January.

RPTIA recently opened on its website, a portal to dealers, manufacturers, campgrounds and RV parks that make, sell and host the structures.

"For many years, park models were the best kept secret in the RV business, but the secret is getting out," said Bill Garpow, executive director of the association.

The association says, unlike traditional manufactured homes, another form of low-cost, permanent housing, park trailers traditionally have been movable resort cottages designed for part-time recreational use.

Looking like miniature homes, they often include bay windows and sleeping lofts, walnut, oak or maple cabinetry and modern appliances and fixtures, including, yes, indoor plumbing.

The industry says the trailers are a product of the energy crisis of the 1970s and were originally designed for snowbirds who wanted sturdier and more spacious trailers at another time when skyrocketing fuel costs focused national attention on energy-efficient vehicles.

Though they are technically classified as recreational vehicles, they move less when they are parked on campsites, RV parks and the like for $1,500 to $5,000 per year. Because the homes are built to last, manufacturers say there is the potential for appreciation, especially when permanently placed on private property and used as weekend or seasonal vacation homes. That could, however, be subject to local zoning requirements.

RPTIA's 46 members, recreational park trailer manufacturers, build the homes to comply with the American National Standards Institute standards, which mandate more than 500 separate safety requirements for recreational park trailers.

Brian Bishop, president of Home Front Inc. of Englewood, FL, one of the companies licensed to build Katrina Cottage, says the homes in Port Charlotte, FL, survived Hurricane Charley in August 2004, which arrived with winds of up to 150 miles an hour. The cottages have been lab-tested to withstand 200-miles per hour winds, he said.

The Katrina Cottage model features lightweight panelized walls constructed of 6 inches of hard foam insulation sandwiched by sheets of fiber cement siding. The roof is made of steel siding with six-inch solid-foam insulation, and the interior ceiling also has a steel finish.

Wind shear resistance doesn't mean park trailers are invulnerable to wind-borne debris or flooding, which can penetrate and take down the strongest structure.

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