Dwell homes…Prefabs empty promise?
Now don’t get me wrong, I am as big a fan of Dwell Magazine as the next guy, but their newest prefab venture with Empyrean (makers of the Deck House and Acorn House) has me wondering if we are really on the same page when it comes to defining “affordable”. When Dwell launced its first Dwell Home Design Invitational in 2003, the challenge was to design a prefab house for under $200,000. The point of the whole contest was to show that prefab was a potential means for making modern housing affordable to the masses, and it was largely succesful. The winning Resolution 4 Dwell home, came in slightly over budget, but ended around $100 a square foot. Now just two years latter, Dwell has anounced its partnership with Empyrean and a new Dwell branded prefab product. The Dwell homes by Empyrean. Their latest issue manages to slip in some free advertising in the Editors Note announcing
“…not one but three beautifully designed, highly functional, and eminently livable modern prefab homes.”
At least they didn’t try and slip “afforable” in there. Because if you are looking for that $100 a square foot mark that Res 4 hit, your looking in the wrong place. Later in the magazine they have a full page ad that reads.
“3 Great Modern Prefab Designs All Under $250/square foot. Want to learn more?”
We would love to. The three houses featured are Res 4’s Dwell home, Charlie Lazors FlatPak home, and a new house by Empyrean called the next house. All three of them are manufactured at Empyrean’s 300,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Acton, Massachusetts. The sizes range from about 2,500 square feet (Next House and Res 4) to just over 3,000 square feet (FlatPak). So, what do they cost you ask? Well , according to their website:
“The general range of prices for a typical 2500 square foot Dwell home will be in the $175-$250 per square foot range, including architects fees, our components, on site construction costs, and finishes.”
Let me help you with the math there. That puts the cheapest of the homes at around $437,500 and the most expensive at $750,000! I think it is fair to say that 1/2 million to 3/4 a million is not affordable to most of us. Now, I’m not trying to be negative here. I am sure there are a lot of great things that will come of this. The fact that Dwell was able to get three great designers together with one of the largest prefab builders in the nation is no small feat. It just appears that it may be some time yet before prefab delivers with its promise to make modernism affordable.
We want to know what you think. Drop by our Forums and let us know what you think about the promise of prefab.
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25 Responses to “Dwell homes…Prefabs empty promise?”
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When it is all said and one, how much does it cost to hire a good modern designer (of the caliber of res4 or Lazor) and build a house the traditional way? From what I have seen its more …a lot more. isnt it?
Hi,
I, too, was a little disappointed at the price of the Dwell – Empyrean venture. We made an appointment with Empyrean. They are very nice, concerned with quality, been in the business for a very long time (Deck House) and stand by their houses. That said, it is a lot of money. I am not saying it’s not worth the price but what’s a normal working person supposed to do? I work in the Boston area. I thought I was pushing it with a budget of $500,000–land and house–it looks like it’s not possible. I’m just not sure where our search will take us. The Glide House folks are looking for a manufacturer on the east cost so we’ll see what happens there.
I am a little ambivalent about cheap vs. quality dilemma–I think about Charles and Ray Eames at the time that there was a push to make it cheaper–good design doesn’t have to be expensive. It was fun for awhile but it became a bit of dead end–and they said enough of that–there are other challenges.
I guess, I feel that Empyrean or any venture like it–could/should offer quality to the rest of us in the world that can’t quite call $750,000 pocket change. They could offer a striped down version. A do it yourself finish version perhaps–same good quality but — varying degrees of finish–and cut us some slack in the price department. How can I build a modest 2000 square foot home on a piece of land for $500,000. Ouch, even that hurts.
Best,
Deb
You know this is the same conversation we had on the Dwell messageboard 3 years ago, except the topic then was the cost of the single modern custom built house. What you have to understand is that we are still talking about the same product – now prefab yes, but without enough volume to enjoy any lower price. But there are options. Some of us are trying, very hard, to offer options. My catalog house plans are a great value but they won’t give you an end run around high local construction costs the way prefab can (or is supposed to). With Northern Steel and ecocontempo.com we are trying to offer a more affordable alternative, but you have to be interested in a steel house. Modular factories are common on the east coast but finding one willing to work outside the normal tract house paradigm continues to be a problem.
Rocio Romero’s LVL house seems to be the most viable alternative to these poseurs. While only 1400 sq. ft., the price tag for the box is $41,000– that’s $29 per square foot!
What is more frustrating to me is that the original Resolution 4 house, aka Dwell House, came in over budget — but still just over $100 per square foot per the above article (although I had thought it was a bit higher than that.) Now the similar house is close to twice the price? I’m all for Dwell, et al, to make some money but that seems to be an enormous price leap. Will Empyrean really build it that much better than Carolina Building Solutions did? The asking price now for the “next” Dwell house is just about what the original was sold for by Wieler.
I agree, the price is starting to become steep, I thought it was about good, economical, quality design. On another note, I’ve noticed that a majority of these houses are on the west coast, is there any info on how these houses hold up on the east coast especially Upstate NY, where the wind and snow can be very treacherous. Any feedback would be great. thanks all!
As an early adopter of NextHouse, I will say – with resolute conviction – that this is not “affordable” housing. I’m loving the house as it goes up, and it will be quite wonderful to live in in a few months, but it’s a pretty steep price. My rough calculation, based on current cost overruns to address design issues, is over $285/sq ft (we’ll be 3050 finished), and we already owned the land. The price does include demolition, but even still…
The big differentiator will be the builder. Our builder is great. But if someone hires a builder who doesn’t have experience with Empyrean designs and how this stuff builds out, or the engineering and geometry involved, there’s going to be a lot of trouble. The decks and roof will be different out of the gate for future nexthouses than for our own, and it’ll be based on what our builder saw that Empyrean didn’t.
The other big issue is that nobody seems to be ready to help people who are replacing existing houses to find good ways to reuse the existing materials. A lot of these new kit houses will go up as replacements. While the kit construction strikes me as less wasteful than site building, we’re still missing a big piece. We downcycled some of the stuff, which isn’t optimal, but better than the waste stream where the rest of it ended. The NextHouse roof system is probably the same as the old Deck Houses – filled with nails, so you can’t hardly reuse the mahogany ceilings and posts in a future building. And Dwell Magazine, with its focus on selling advertising of brand new products certainly isn’t doing anything to help its readers and the communities at large think about and solve this problem.
Just a random rant on a Sunday night….
I have spoken with all the majors in the prefab business. I can’t see a reason to go prefab at this point. I’m building a 2600 sq.foot home, modernist in it’s design, by an architect featured more than once in Dwell and my cost per foot is $234.00.(exclusive of land costs) I have a design that is spectacular with high end finishes thru out. I am building in Indiana and there is no way the prefabs could compete.For now there is no real benefits to go prefab unless you truly fall in love with the design component. If prefab truly offered some compelling advantages I would have done it in a heart beat.
Can you add any more insite to your Empyrean problems? We are in intitial design on a Next House in Georgia and the Empyrean people are beginning to make us nervous. They seem to sidestep facts and if you don’t catch something yourself……you have no chance! HELP!!!!!
Thanks!
Can anyone help Susan out?
Susan, et al…
I am also in the process of building a NextHouse. I have to say that so far the process has been terrible! We are WAY over our initial cost estimate and more than five months behind schedule. Right now it is looking like construction of our 2500 square foot NextHouse will be in the $325/ft range (not including land).
I wish there were a way for all of us who have made the decision to build “Dwell Homes BY Empyrean” to compare notes and share our learnings We need a forum!
Yes, so far definitely “an empty promise”
Cheers
NextHouse
If you need a forum you can have it here. Or if you want a wider readership you can use the forums at LiveModern. If you want to put it in their face use the new community hosted on the Dwell magazine web site.
Let me know if you want me to make a Dwell Homes section in our forum here. I would be more than happy to do it.
one previous posted asked if it was more expensive to hire one’s own designer and go from there.
the answer is no, it is not more expensive. we are in the process of designing such a style of home, and have found that by using a mix of pre-fab and on-site fab elements, we can build the same style of house for around $125/sqft, which includes the finishing inside.
what we found was that the labor cost was the big part of the on-site fab, but we found several pre-fab construction companies that normally build office buildings who were willing to look at our requirements. we found one that builds smallish office buildings and prefabs the pieces. the end result will be similar.
i think dwell’s problem is they are trying to be hyper-stylish, instead of building something accessible, they are trying to appeal to silicon valley types who are choking in money (or were…) some of the materials they used in their buildings were absurdly lavish (south american hardwoods?) and a narrow-minded focus on using only “green friendly” materials.
i am all for using sustainable and so-called green materials, but not at the point where it drives up the cost by 200%. furthermore, i pointed out at a forum that flying south american woods to the usa likely burns up more fossil fuels on the trip that my using locally produced woods would ever do.
if they want to make some high-end homes, that’s great, but they should stick to their original mission– showing the world that there is another, cheaper and better way to build a home.
In follow up to the posts by Susan (April 2) and nexthouse (April 3), I posted earlier about our NextHouse. We are thrilled with our house. It’s not inexpensive, but the finished product, as put together by our builder, is absolutely gorgeous. We are, with a few exceptions, right on target with our estimates. We ended up buying some more interior trim pieces from Empyrean, since we wanted cased doors and baseboards that we’re called for in what we ordered. Our builder has probably saved our lives on this. He has a sound working relationship with Empyrean, having started out working for them when he was a kid. He asks good questions and works with them to understand what they’re proposing. He has resolved a bunch of questions that should please future customers. We had a slow start based on our local permitting requirements (including private septic and so forth), but if the teardown happened on Halloween, and the foundation was poured over Thanksgiving/the week following, we’ll be in by Memorial Day. Our only delays were the wallboard guy – everything else has been seamless, as our builder knew how to stage things and keep it moving even when the big folding door took so long to arrive. Anyway, I think Empyrean could learn a few things about client management, but the house is great, the design is working and we can’t wait to move in. My advice – ask questions, and push for answers; you’ll get them but maybe not as easily as you might have wished. In the end, it’s about the house, not about Empyrean.
I live in Los Angeles and I am planning on building an LVL Rocio Romero prefab on my property. While the total cost (& shipping) will be $ 49,000, I am waiting for the estimates for labor and material this Friday. I have a feeling I’m going to pass out…
About Diane’s post from May 3rd, how did it turn out? I am very interested in learning how your LVL project is going. I would like to build on my lot but have limited resources and an interest in geothermal and solar technology.
I too am curious how your project is going Diane. What did the labor and the material and the foundation bill come in at ? Did you have your own contractor assemble it or did you use the Romero build team ?
rodemarc@gmail.com
I think that I will stick build my new Modern Home, that I drew on Viseo software and had a designer clean it up. I am using materials found on ebay, Home restore and like to come in under $100 sq ft (not including land and site work) with high end materials…in three years I guess that I could sell to an “Empyrean type customer” and triple my money?
To bad that the goal that DWELL had to come up with a modern home for the masses failed…I still love their rag…great source book and idea book.
[...] Update: Well, I got a great education about how much a modern prefab home currently costs from the comments to this post by some of the people looking seriously at or already creating this type of house. Looks like there’s a way to go to make the houses truly affordable (e.g., $150-$250 sq ft.), but that there’s a lot of passion to make that happen and some willing to go for it and be test cases for the rest of us. [...]
Well, I don’t love the Dwell rag. I’m tired of all mainstream rich people with their two and a half kids and dogs smiling happily in their modern monsters. Where is the good sense in all this? Where is the quality of American integrity to simplicity of design and function and beauty that began in the 18th c. in this country? And, for heaven’s sake, above all, the prices would make Getty blush! I know, I’m supposed to be more forgivng to the pioneering spirit, yes? I just don’t see that much creativity in all this.
In my practice here in small-town central New York State, it seems hardly anybody is interested in modernist design, and very few are even aware that it might be an option for their new homes. The vast majority think the standard builder “transitional” is the state of the art in design. And the builders are just as clueless, and if anybody tries to build something different they’re likely to jack up their price just because it’s not what they’re used to. Still, seems to me if a home was designed with true modernist simplicity, it should not have to cost more than the standard colonials, unless you used gold-plated materials. If anybody’s looking for a modestly-priced architect to help them build a modestly-priced modern home in New York State, I can help.
I just found Idea Box in Oregon. 75K for the WHOLE thing–includes the energy efficient applicances (even a wine cooler!), and all the trimmings (bamboo flours, eco-countertops). Comes with 100 free miles of delivery. Optional is solar off-grid–which they’ll integrate into the roof if you desire.
I wish they were on the East Coast!!!!! For me, it would cost 13K for delivery ($5/mile). But its ALMOST worth that when you compare the total cost to all the other fancy-pants 400K prefabs that don’t even look as good.
I’m still dooling over the house and might ask my friends’ husband who is a builder what he thinks about the just paying that much for delivery. What do you guys think? Keep in mind that the MEDIAN price in my area for a new home is 400K.
I agree, 175- 250 per square foot for a pre-fab home i a steal ! Pre-fab homes are supose to be a cost effective solution they should cost about 75-100 per square foot to make any sense…. to build a modern house like this using tradional construction will cost 100 -125 including the interior finishes and site work.
They are out of their minds !
Ray
I love the Dwell houses, but I think they miss the whole point of the term “modern”. The whole ideal of modern was to mass produce quality products that were affordable to everyone. These homes are nice, but the manufacturing process should allow for inexpensive, adaptable structures that are at or under $100k to be given the trem affordable. As they are now, they are products that are well out of reach of much of the readership that Dwell caters to.