The promise of modular homes

A potential piece of the housing puzzle, but can the Adirondacks attract manufacturers?

By Tim Rowland

Unlike Rome, the Adirondack home of tomorrow will be built  in a day, or at least set up. It will use scant energy, and what it does need will be generated from rooftop panels or a community solar farm. The money normally spent on electricity, gas or oil bills can be redirected to the mortgage instead, increasing the affordability of these homes, which will already be cheaper than than traditional stick-built counterparts. Each house will be custom built and specifically sized, not just for the customer, but to fit efficiently on lot or land.

The houses will be built in the Adirondacks by Adirondackers using locally sourced lumber and cellulose products that will support local jobs in forests and mills. Production of these homes will be performed under roof in factories owned by the carpenters, plumbers and drywall hangers who will share in the company’s decision making and profits, which will be substantial enough that they, unlike today, will be able to afford their own house.

At least that’s the dream. As might be surmised, the Adirondack home of tomorrow will not be here tomorrow.

It is rather an amalgamation of concepts being floated in the Northeast, loosely tied together by the idea of factory-built housing, which has cost, logistic and efficiency advantages over stick-built, the term assigned to typical construction where materials are delivered to the job site, and contractors seemingly spend half their time waiting for deliveries and running back and forth to Lowe’s.

An affordable option

“We’re really excited, but we still have to prove ourselves,” said Caroline Pryor, founder of Zero Energy Homes, a worker-owned start-up in Maine building super-efficient modular homes almost completely out of local materials.

With the average new home blowing past the $300,000 price point, a small but growing number of advocates are seeing factory built homes as the future of Adirondack housing. They run from tiny homes that would fit inside the living room of many an Adirondack Great Camp to manufactured homes — once known as trailer houses, but are of much better quality today — to modular, which are of as high a quality, or better, than traditional stick-built homes, but cost a bit less due to assembly-line-like efficiencies.

One glaring inefficiency is that even though the Northeast leads the nation in modular housing, these homes are built hundreds of miles away. Pryor said Maine foresters have mused that they are sending their lumber all the way to Pennsylvania, where it is assembled and sent back.

Even so, factory homes have a price advantage. Tiny homes average $50,000, manufactured homes average $125,000, and modulars $270,000, although these prices should be taken with a grain of salt since they can vary widely and do not include land.

The convenience factor

In the Northeast, modulars are gaining popularity not just because of their price and durability, but because in some cases there is no other option.

“We have a shortage of contractors, so it’s hard to get a builder to commit to doing a whole house — they are scheduled out for years,” said Megan Murphy, executive director of Adirondack Roots, a nonprofit housing agency based in Elizabethtown. “A modular is a pretty quick turnaround once you get on the schedule of the modular builder,” she said.

There is no waiting weeks or even months for a subcontractor or a load of windows to show up. “You’re not going to have those types of delays and issues that come up,” Murphy said. “So that’s where a modular can be really satisfying and helpful.” 

From a quality standpoint, modulars are considered as good or better than traditional stick-built construction, because they are built on jigs guaranteeing perfect angles and are constructed out of the elements which can damage wood or paint. They can be tailored to the building code of the area in which they are to be sited, are eligible for traditional 30-year mortgages and appreciate in value.

Modulars are now the backbone of nonprofits’ affordable housing initiatives, including the completed Fawn Valley in Lake Placid, and planned projects in Wilmington and Keene.

The rub is that, like any paradigm shift, modular housing has been slow to gain acceptance. The National Association of Homebuilders says that despite plenty of positive press, modulars comprise only 2% of housing nationwide. In the Northeast, that figure is 7%, but even so, attracting investment has yet to yield results.

Opportunities for manufacturers

Adele Connors, a founding board member of the nonprofit investing group Point Positive, casted about for a modular home builder prior to the pandemic. Citing a five-year market demand in the North Country for 120,000 new housing units, the plan, drawn up with Point Positive Executive Director Melinda Little and Adirondack Park Agency Economic Affairs specialist Dan Kelleher, the proposal pitched a shovel-ready factory site in the Chesterfield Commerce Park in Keeseville.

“The idea that you can build 12 months a year, and that (employees) just have to be skilled at one thing and don’t have to know how to build a whole house — it just made sense to me,” Connors said.

But so far, no manufacturer has stepped forward.

Pryor acknowledged the challenge of producing a high-quality product, scaling it to a small size  appropriate to rural, Northeastern communities, paying a living wage to employees and still turning out a finished home at a price point that people on average salaries can afford, while providing a meaningful return for investors.

The Zero Energy Homes plan anticipates building 40 homes a year by the time it’s fully up and running. Seventy-five percent would be affordable workforce housing, ranging from $185,000 for a one bedroom ,one bath home, to $215,000 for two bedrooms and two baths. 

To keep the cost down, the workforce housing, representing 75% of production, is subsidized by the other 25%, which will be for moderate income buyers and custom sales.

Success, said Pryor, depends on sufficient start-up capital, a strong team of experienced advisors and an adaptive workforce — but it’s possible. “This is building science, it’s not rocket science,” she said.

A local builder

Joe Plumb knows it’s possible to build modular homes  in the Adirondacks because he’s been doing it for 20 years at the White Pine Cabins plant that his father founded in Saranac Lake. His crew of three turns out four finely crafted 500-square-foot homes a year with materials that are regionally sourced.

Larger than a tiny home but smaller than a traditional starter home, Plumb said his cabins, designed to be occupied year-round, are popular with people at or near retirement age who have some land and want to downsize. But he says they could also fit a need in hamlets where leftover, fractional lots are too small for traditional construction. 

“These postage-stamp pieces of land were previously undevelopable,” he said. 

Some communities will need to relax their zoning codes, which can require a minimum square footage, but Plumb saud these small houses can increase hamlet density, which most housing advocates believe is a key to creating housing that’s both affordable and available.

Plumb said his dad Bill, who died in 2022, was something of a visionary when he first saw similar cabins in Tennessee and said  “We need these in the Adirondacks.” 

With a background in elderly care, “Dad’s focus started with senior housing that’s simple and on one floor  — the granny-flat idea.”

Granny flats, less colorfully categorized as Auxiliary Dwelling Units, allow seniors to age in a place  of their own, downsizing out of multi-floor and multi-bedroom homes they no longer need and whose maintenance they may no longer be able to afford. Those bigger homes are then, ideally, purchased by growing families who move out of starter homes that are in turn opened up to first-time buyers.

It’s rare for younger people to buy these cabins, but they have on occasion if their lifestyle permits it. They can also be customized — in a home currently being built, the lone occupant asked that a bedroom be converted into an office, while a previous buyer who hosted large family gatherings asked for a professional Viking six-burner range.

“We build these as if they are our own,” Plumb said, to the point where they study pine knots in the lumber to position them where they will be  most aesthetically pleasing. The cabins are sealed up tight and generously insulated. Before the switch to LED lighting, the home’s incandescent bulbs alone would be enough to heat the cabin in shoulder seasons, Plumb said.

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