Saturday afternoon we were joined by an especially chipper co-editor Marissa and Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG (which was just named a Yahoo! Pick of 2006), along with his charming wife, for a personalized tour of the LivingHomes prefab installation in Santa Monica. As you know, we have discussed the home repeatedly, good and bad, so the opportunity to see the interior up close and in person could not be missed.
We arrived in the afternoon ready to meet Steve Glenn, the owner and founder of LivingHomes, only to find a busload of Dutch tourists swarming around the home in their non-wooden shoes, taking pictures and asking questions. We noticed that they stared at us with dead, inhuman eyes, judging us silently. Stupid Dutch. The home is really quite attractive. Many of the modern and prefab homes we've visited recently have sort of an IKEA-ish feel to them, so we were surprised to find the LivingHomes house had a nice comfy lived-in and livable feel to it. After the Dutch left, Steve sat down with us for a nice chat. Among the many things we learned was that LivingHomes has several other units in production in SoCal and sales are going well. A redesigned Web site, scheduled to launch soon, will provide potential buyers with the ability to customize their homes. He also showed us some things which we were not allowed to take pictures of. Whatever. More pictures and words after the jump.
As the first LEED Platinum certified home built in the United States, the LivingHomes house featured an array of enviro-friendly features including solar panel thingys and some sort of water heating system. Jesus, we should have taken notes.
Among the more whimsical features of the home was Steve's collection of LEGOs, including this stash in the middle of a coffee table - a custom piece, he assured us.
And leave it to a bunch of blogger nerds to obsess over the built in cappuccino machine, which naturally we all congregated to. Screw sustainability, we like shiny metallic built in wall appliances!
Kudos to Steve for a house well done. We look forward to visiting your future installations.
· Curbed LA Interviews: Ray Kappe [Curbed LA]
· Letter to LA Times Editor on LivingHomes [Curbed LA]
· Getting Closer, LivingHomes Prefab Almost Done [Curbed LA]