As geeked as we are about preservation, no one here at This Old House had a clue that pre-1976 mobile homes would cause a fuss. Yet the old trailers do have sympathetic friends in a group of civic-minded architects from the University of Colorado in Boulder. The faculty and a team of students devised a way to recycle the outdated narrow footÂprint—and some parts—for a new type of affordable home. Their model may help trailer-park residents who are unable to lease anything but the nation's older lots that are too slender for doublewide upgrades.
The process, called TrailerWrap, started with a donated 1965 trailer, precisely because it's a type several million Americans still own. The crew salvaged its chassis and furnace, then, on a materials budget of $32,000, wrapped the frame in insulated stucco walls and $1-a-foot, utility-grade oak floors. Raising the 7-foot roof to 9 and then sloping it as high as 12 feet on one side allowed for rainwater runoff, the addition of a clerestory, and a loftlike interior. A cut above old singlewides, it's now for sale. Its architecture meets lot zoning codes thanks to "basic lessons of old shotgun houses," says Michael Hughes, former assistant professor, now in Arkansas, who led the project. The lessons aren't lost on Boulder. With 3,000 mobile homes in and around the city and the median price for a detached home around half a million, it's learning fast that small is also beautiful.
The process, called TrailerWrap, started with a donated 1965 trailer, precisely because it's a type several million Americans still own. The crew salvaged its chassis and furnace, then, on a materials budget of $32,000, wrapped the frame in insulated stucco walls and $1-a-foot, utility-grade oak floors. Raising the 7-foot roof to 9 and then sloping it as high as 12 feet on one side allowed for rainwater runoff, the addition of a clerestory, and a loftlike interior. A cut above old singlewides, it's now for sale. Its architecture meets lot zoning codes thanks to "basic lessons of old shotgun houses," says Michael Hughes, former assistant professor, now in Arkansas, who led the project. The lessons aren't lost on Boulder. With 3,000 mobile homes in and around the city and the median price for a detached home around half a million, it's learning fast that small is also beautiful.
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