ENVIRONMENT

Tiny house culture growing in Hudson Valley

Karen Maserjian Shan For the Poughkeepsie Journal

Joshua Slovensky wasn’t looking for a big home. He’d grown up in a small house and as he got older, realized he didn’t need many belongings.

Joshua Slovensky’s fiancé, Crescentia Danner, shows off the couple’s tiny house, which is all of 8 1/2-feet wide by 24-feet long by 10-feet high.

All that was put to the test when he and his fiancé, Crescentia Danner, took a cross-country road trip, spending most of their time in a small car with minimal possessions.

“We made it seven weeks without a problem with each other, so we thought 175-square-feet would work out,” he said.

Slovensky wasn’t talking about a camper or recreational vehicle for a more comfortable ride. He meant a house that he and his fiancé could call home.

“A couple of years ago I started to hear about tiny houses,” said Slovensky, who lives in a rental in Woodstock. “Everybody … goes to school, racks up student loans and has a mortgage or rent.”

Slovensky looked for a house to buy in the area, but couldn’t find what he wanted in his price range. Intrigued by the tiny home concept, he and Danner found a tiny home builder in Tennessee, which they hired to construct a shell for their 178-square-foot tiny home on wheels. They brought the home here in February with the intent of finishing it themselves. But after a chance meeting with Tom Anderson, owner of Tiny Houses of the Hudson Valley in Kingston, Slovensky brought him in to assist with the job’s completion.

The kitchen of Joshua Slovensky’s and Crescentia Danner’s tiny home is equipped with a 2- by 2-foot propane stove and an 11-cubic-foot refrigerator. Eventually, they’ll add a washer/dryer combination.

“It worked out perfectly,” Slovensky said, adding Anderson has been a great help in seeing his and Danner’s vision come to life, now only a few weeks away from its conclusion. “I’m basically building a house from scratch,” he said.

At 100- to 400-square-feet, which the http://thetinylife.com reports as the size of a tiny home, the diminutive residences are a fraction of the area of a traditional, 2,315-square-foot home, which was the median scope of a newly built house in 2012, according to a report by the National Association of Home Builders. To put it another way, Slovensky’s house is close in size, but still smaller, than a 2,000- to 2,999-square-foot home’s dining room, on average, 196 square feet, per NAHB.

Adam Anderson, who works with his brother, Tom, at Tiny Homes of the Hudson Valley, said a tiny house on wheels or THOW, differs from a recreational vehicle in that a tiny home’s trailer serves as the structure’s foundation and is built specifically for a timber-framed, full-time residence.

The kitchen of Joshua Slovensky’s and Crescentia Danner’s tiny home is equipped with a 2- by 2-foot propane stove and an 11-cubic-foot refrigerator. Eventually, they’ll add a washer/dryer combination.

“Most of the people who come to the shop and are interested in purchasing a tiny house relate many stories as to why, but the two most common are young people who don’t want a mortgage and are very green-minded (wanting to live small and reduce their carbon footprint), to empty nesters who want to sell their home and roll a tiny house onto their children’s property,” Anderson said by email.

Standard THOWs, he said, are 8-feet, 6-inches wide, which is the maximum for road transport, by 24-feet long, but also can go up to 26- or 28-feet long or down to 20- or 16-feet long. At most, they can peak at 13-feet, 6-inches high, which is the national standard for overpasses.

Anderson’s cost for tiny homes start at $17,000, which is for a dried shell, meaning four walls, windows, a roof and an access door, up to $75,000 for a fully finished home. Most of Anderson’s customers spend $25,000 to $30,000 on the home’s finishing.

“The homes can be fully plumbed-in, or “off grid,” meaning they make use of water storage tanks and toilets like the composting and incinerating styles,” he said. “Some have basic shed roofs, some have peaked roofs with dormers for opening up a loft area, meaning there can be and are often two levels in a tiny house.”

Anderson said while interest in tiny homes is strongest in Colorado and the Western states, momentum is gaining in the Catskill/Hudson Valley region.

“The tiny house culture is growing here and I speak to the local tiny house community daily,” he said. “When I say they’re a community, I truly mean it in every sense ... they communicate with one another; they visit us on weekends and send friends, and friends of friends, etc.”

Locally, he said, some people are interested in a tiny home as a full-time residence, while others are considering adding one to their property to rent out. There’s also the novelty of vacationers staying in a tiny home since the largely wood structures have an almost cabin-feel.

“The true tiny house community doesn’t represent a passing fad. Downsizing to this scale is a way of life and a philosophy,” Anderson said.

Slovensky, who studied zoology and environmental sciences in college, said aside from the lower cost of his tiny house, its environmental pluses were another draw, including that it’s been fitted with a composting toilet. In the future, he hopes to incorporate solar panels and adapt his and Danner’s 24-foot-long by 10-feet-high, one-floor home to go off the grid.

One way the couple is maximizing the interior’s cozy footprint is with a fold-down bed off one wall. When the bed is up, a 5-foot partition on wheels will be stationed in front of it so the area can be used for living. When the bed is in use, the furniture will be rolled out of the way and the wall moved back, allowing for a temporary bedroom.

Slovensky is looking for property to buy for the home’s ultimate location or he might set it on his family’s property in West Shokan.

“It takes a lot to be able to live in a small space with someone,” he said of living with his fiancee. “We get along really well.”

Scott Rubinstein of Quail Hollow Events said tiny houses will be featured in the upcoming Woodstock-New Paltz Art & Crafts Fairs at the Ulster County Fairgrounds in New Paltz, during the Memorial Day weekend.

“People are selling off their .75 acres and hitting the road,” he said. “They want more than just a trailer or motor home.”

Some people are buying tiny houses as accessory to their main house, Rubinstein said, with each house custom-produced for the client.

“They finish the detail of the tiny house with the same finishing material their (traditional) house might have,” he said.

Anderson said all of their homes are constructed according to building codes, but potential owners should check their municipality’s zoning codes for appropriate places to locate their tiny house. And, he said, while tiny homes are similar in floor plan, many include lots of custom detailing and character.

“Tiny houses are like snowflakes,” he said. “Everybody has different ideas for theirs.”

Karen Maserjian Shan is a freelance writer: mkshan@optonline.net

Tiny home resources

Regulations for tiny homes vary by region, so check with your municipality before investing in a tiny home for specifics:

•Dutchess County Planning and Development: http://www.co.dutchess.ny.us/countygov/departments/planning/plindex.htm; http://www.co.dutchess.ny.us/Municipalities/MUNtownstable.htm

•Ulster County Planning Department: http://ulstercountyny.gov/planning

•The Woodstock-New Paltz Art & Crafts Fairs, Memorial Day Weekend, May 28- 30, Ulster County Fairgrounds, New Paltz: http://quailhollow.com/index.html

•Tiny Houses of the Hudson Valley: tinyhousesofthehudsonvalley.com

•The Tiny Life: http://thetinylife.com/

•The Tiny House Blog: http://tinyhouseblog.com/