GlideHouse Reality

I am very curious, is the GlideHouse is taking off in the market? Great concept, lots of thought provoking ideas, but is it selling?

Marshall, I know sales figures are probably confidential, but what are people actually ordering? What layouts and what level of customization?

Are people solving the paradox of If you can buy affordable land here, you can stick-build it cheaper?

I'm a fan, so don't take me wrong. Just very curious.

Well, there are about 10 Glidehouses in the ground now, and I've forwarded to Michelle Kaufmann Designs about 100 new clients in the last 7 months (since the Breezehouse debuted at Sunset in May). I recently saw a compendium of floor plans for these clients, and almost everyone of them is modified to some extent, and most of them to a considerable degree. People know what they want to live in, and thankfully Michelle can design for the modular building process to make that happen. As far as cheaper than stick built, most of her clients are in more urban/suburban markets in California where modular is definitely cheaper than stick built, both in time and money.

Last year at this time, Michelle has only one other architect on staff, now she has 10. So I think it was a pretty good year for Michelle Kaufmann Designs, and 2006 will be even better! I think you'll also see some great new products in 2006 from Greg La Vardera, and the EcoContemp line he is doing with Northern Steel International.

Marshall

Are there any clients of MKD reading this who would be prepared to talk candidly about their experience? I recently heard from someone who'd had a very poor experience with Marmol Radziner and it gave me the heeby-geebies! Seems like you have to be brave, patient and wealthy to go into this kind of situation.