Building a Joshua Tree House Part I
My wife and I renovated a 1970s Joshua Tree Home called the Dusty Rabbit because of the large rabbit populace around the house. The purchase of the house included 4 acres of land but split into two parcels with two different APNs.
We decided on building a new Joshua Tree House from the ground up called Venturi House since one house would a separate living and bedroom quarters. I was excited as it’s my first time building a house from scratch. I was particularly excited about working with a designer to make every aspect our own and address all the problems from our previous Joshua Tree home.
I’m very excited to share with you the process we have undergone in this new construction and the roadblocks we stumbled through. I wish someone shared with me these issues, in addition to exploring alternative homes such as prefabs, tiny, and container homes. I went down a lot of dead-ends over the course of 1.5 years to finally begin the design process which I will share.
Tiny homes, Prefabs, Mobile Homes & Container homes
I contacted 20+ companies and visited a few without any results for a different number of reasons. Prefabs, Airstream trailers, and Tiny homes (prebuilt) are a hot topic these days and hard to get a hold of. I believe that most of the organizations have smaller operations and do not have enough customer service to handle the volume. Most of the time, it’s the owner/builder that is handling the calls while building a home.
Container Homes / Prefabs
Nowadays, prefabs homes have very, very cool designs. Surrounded by glass, balconies, louvered wood finishes. Some include steel frames that are stronger than wood. My initial thought was, drop one of these in and “presto”. Minimum work. I’d skip the entire design process. However, prefabs require a foundation, permits, sewer, water, and electrical connection.
All of which requires a contractor. I decided to go down this path with a company called Kithaus. I visited one of their existing prefab homes. Beautiful. Corrugated steel, solid steel frame. The owner was also very nice and informative. This organization was the most informative but suggested we still needed a contractor and to go through the permitting process, something I was very unfamiliar with.
The hardest process, in my opinion, was the unknown process of design, blueprinting, permitting, structural engineering, and Title 24 energy requirements. With prefabs, you would still need to go through that entire process. The benefits of a prefab are the ability to skip the design and choosing of finishes. However, by skipping that entire process, you’ll skip the relationship building with the team doing the permitting. The permitting entails quite a bit of complexity for a layman.
Tiny homes square footage typically constitutes less than 120 square feet. While they are cheap, however; they require concrete bedding otherwise they will sink into sand over the years, restroom which requires plumbing hookup and septic installation, and electrical and/or propane. All of which require a general contractor. From what I’ve read, tiny homes are illegal in Joshua Tree due to the minimum square feet requirement of 750 sq feet.
Container homes are also very cool. Steel construction, hip and trending now. I contacted several companies and finally got a hold of one. They had a nice youtube video to describe their place. We spoke to the receptionist or manager several times who was very nice and excited but never gave us a quote or went to the next steps. We found that odd. From later research, we opted not to go with a container home for many of the same reasons we didn’t want to go a fancy prefab: cost per square foot, future appreciation of the home, the difficulty of refinancing in the future, and cost of services. The most alarming issue with getting a container home is the inability to determine what was in the container. Most builders buy a used one from China at a fraction of the cost. The container could have included something harmless like fruits or building material. However, it’s impossible to determine if the container shipped toxic materials in a past life. Cargo manifests wouldn’t carry that type of history. Imagine living in a container that used to ship poisonous gases or radioactive material. The solution is to buy or ensure the container used is brand new. Obviously adding to the cost.
Traditional Home
Financing proved difficult with these alternative types of homes i.e. manufactured/mobile home. After a conversation with my lender, I was informed that getting a loan for these types of homes would be more difficult. Additionally, my real estate agent told me the resale value maybe 20% less than a traditional home. Having a manufactured home on the neighboring property, I realize the difficulties of getting simple services like home insurance and installing solar. We went with an insurance that specialized in home insurance with more costly premiums.
The lower appreciation rate, increased difficulty of obtaining financing or refinancing, higher service costs, lack of vendor responses, higher cost per square feet, and high involvement in permitting and contracting work have veered us into building a traditional home. Additionally, by designing a custom home, we’d have the ability to solve for the issues of the previous Joshua Tree home and build something of our own.
Designing through Issues
My favorite part of the build process. How do we build something that is within a $200K budget, all in, that harnesses the best features of the desert to make living great. Courtyard solves all our problems.
In the Dusty Rabbit Bungalow, we spend most of our time outdoors by the firepit. We sit there and gaze at the stars or moon. We try not to spend time indoors because it’s so nice outdoors in the deserts. Very minimal light pollution.
The issue my wife has with our outdoor area is the concept of safety. With both our backs exposed and the area being pitch black, she felt unsafe. We wanted something a bit more enclosed while still being outdoor.
Fires aren’t always allowed in Joshua Tree due to high winds and dry brush. We solve for that by designing into the courtyard a gas outdoor fireplace.
The first house, Dusty Rabbit Bungalow sits on a main road, whilst easy to access and safe, can get loud.
You can literally hear a car coming a mile away. Initially, I thought it was because of the lack of sound. Or if it was the lack of trees to absorb the sound. It may be both. A solution I found was during my drive there with my friend, Jose. He mentioned the walls on the freeway. He noticed that the city built these walls all along with residential homes but not in the commercial areas. These were tall 10'+ bricks that acted as a sound barrier for freeway noise. We decided to include a tall brick wall on the south side to block the noise coming from Aberdeen.
The new build is next door so shares the exposure to the main road. The courtyard solves all these problems. We split the house into 2 units with a courtyard in the middle. Then create a wall to connect the two houses that are tall enough to block sound. Another wall on the north side to be respectful of our neighbors and bounce sound back to our house.
Design Process
The first person I contacted my real estate agent who then referred me to a builder/contractor. This person told me I’m working backward, and needed to speak with a draftsman first. The draftsman uses your inputs to help you design the place. The contractor told me I didn’t need to work with an architect if I wasn’t building an expensive building with cantilever roofs. I went with his referral. There are not a lot of draftsmen available in Joshua Tree as it is a less populated town. We spoke a couple of times but he was very busy. He told me that if I wanted to start I’d need to wait 5 months before the design process could begin. I decided to go with someone from LA and sent him a bunch of inspiration photos. While my friend received a $600 quote, I received a $6K quote. My friend and I compared notes that found that he had already pre-designed things on Homestylr. Also, unknown to me, none of my inspiration photos were of the standard build. I didn’t know that installing glass and having vaulted ceilings would cost $$$. Pre designing on Homestylr reduces the number of iterations needed from a designer. The other issue with working with an architect in Los Angeles was the distance. While this architect was good, I needed someone to be in the desert and understand the strong winds, heat, and help me through the San Bernardino permitting process.
I even proceeded to pre-purchase a stock design from Houseplans.com. My wife intelligently steered us away from this. Having a stock design doesn’t include the permitting process.
I first spent 3–6 months sketching out designs with my wife on Homestyler, a free designing tool, which helped crystallize our design concepts.
Gregg — I finally found a great draftsman to help me with the designs of the house. Also a very busy guy, he was nice enough to squeeze me in between his other 10 projects.
The quote costs $8K for the design, permitting, and blueprints. While I had a general layout already, Gregg helped me with general rules like needing 3’ egress swing door, advising me on general cost of having more than 10’ ceiling, honing in on square-foot per room, as well as a lot of aesthetic and functional design advise. Here is an image of our latest design.
Now that the blueprints are done, he will be handing this over to his partner to handle the blueprints.
As I am still undergoing the build, I will update this blog as we move into the next stage. To provide a summary, I have heard from a cost perspective, the next step after architectural is Title 24, then structural engineering, then civil engineering to do the grading.
There is a Title 24 permitting process, a California energy code. I was told it favors having a gas heating system so going all-electric wouldn’t be favorable because heating water is more efficient with gas. I found that odd. The reason for the structural engineer is due to earthquakes and the need for more bolts, particularly if there is more glass which can require a steel frame. We also need a perc test as our area requires a septic system.
Come back for more, I will be updating this blog on the design and build process.
