BRATTLEBORO — Last November, Caleb Clark and Laura Goldblatt got married and bought a home in a quiet neighborhood about a half-mile from downtown.
Their home was built in 1905 and, like many homes of its type and age in town, it has a small, two-car garage built in the rear of the property.
But where most people would see a two-car garage, Clark and Goldblatt see a real estate opportunity.
Working with Brattleboro architect Robert Swinburne, the couple plans to tear down the garage and replace it with a 320-square-foot dwelling.
It's a local example of a new movement in housing: the “tiny house.”
The tiny house is a reaction to the “supersizing” of housing, a conscious effort by builders and designers to create housing that uses space efficiently and consumes far less energy than a typical home. These dwellings can be as small as 76 square feet or as large as 500 square feet.
According to the National Association of Home Builders, the average single-family home in the United States has grown from 983 square feet in 1950 to nearly 2,500 square feet today.
Clark and Goldblatt's goal is to build a superinsulated, passive solar dwelling on the site of the old garage and do it for about $30,000. They hope to be able to rent out the new house when it is finished.
“It doesn't make sense to build a house for cars anymore,” said Clark, an educational technologist and program director for the Teaching with Technology Program at Marlboro College Graduate School.
“We thought about building an apartment on top of the garage, but the garage foundation wouldn't support it,” Clark said. “It's easier to tear the garage down and start from scratch.”
After looking at plans on the Internet, Clark and Goldblatt decided to use a design by Swinburne, who runs Bluetime Collaborative, an architectural firm located at the Cotton Mill complex.
Swinburne sees this project as a prototype for others to follow.
“They are trying to do it for $30,000, which may not be possible, but even at $50,000, it is an excellent investment for an in-town location, or anywhere,” said Swinburne. “It would beat the price of almost anything out there, especially when factoring in long-term operating costs.”
Clark and Goldblatt hope to keep the cost down by using recycled materials from ReNew Salvage and by doing as much of the work themselves as possible. They are, however, planning to use contractors to do the more difficult work of excavation, plumbing, and electricity.
Part of the construction cost is being paid for by Brattleboro Area Affordable Housing. The nonprofit offers low-interest loans and grants of up to $3,000 for homeowners who want to create apartments in their homes.
“What we're building is, in effect, a one-room studio apartment, except that it's not attached to our house,” said Clark.
Clark said that there might also be money available from Efficiency Vermont, which offers incentives to builders of new energy-efficient housing.
Goldblatt, the lead teacher in the primary/elementary program at The Neighborhood Schoolhouse, says that the town of Brattleboro “has been friendly and helpful” as the project has unfolded.
Since the new house will be built on the same footprint as the current garage, will be roughly the same size as the garage, and will be hooking up to the existing town water and sewer, no building permit was needed.
As designed, the house would be 22 feet long and 16 feet wide, with a sleep loft above the main living area. With the level of insulation that will be installed, only a couple of electric baseboard heaters will be needed to heat the house, Clark said.
“It's a very 'old school' kind of construction job, using building techniques that every carpenter from the 1950s on knows about,” said Clark. “The contractors we've talked to love this design.”
“[Swinburne] said it was rare for him to get a chance to do a free-standing structure these days,” said Goldblatt.
“This is a perfect project for do-it-yourself types to save money over everything else on the market,” said Swinburne.
Clark has been blogging about the tiny house project on his website, www.calebclark.org.
“We're putting together a detailed list of supplies and expenses for this project, to show how it comes together from start to finish,” said Goldblatt.
“We think of it as open-source contracting,” said Clark.