Made in Missouri

Chic and Modern Prefab Homes

Posted at June 30, 2006 13:29

Architect Rocio Romero’s original LV Home rests lightly on a bluff above the Pacific in Laguna Verde, Chile. The house is a rectangular box, sheathed in glass and corrugated steel. One imagines the glowing box inhabited by fabulous people sipping drinks while resting on modern furniture.

This has been the stereotype of modern architecture: built for the rich and exotic. Rocio, however, wants you to imagine yourself living in one of these edgy structures. Rocio is now blending modern architectural sensibilities with prefabricated home construction in Missouri.

“People who like modern homes usually have to get a custom architect,” Rocio says. “My solution makes it easier to digest.”

Drawn to Missouri in 2003 by her husband, San Diego-native Rocio opened a production facility in Perryville, fabricating LV Home kits. The kits take their initials and name from Laguna Verde. Staffed by four local craftsmen, two salespeople, and Rocio, her company is able to produce one kit per week. Sold for $33,900, the kit includes materials, such as prefabricated elements for quick construction and detailed plans and instructions for building the 1,150-square-foot home. By the time the kit is installed, buyers will spend about $135,000, excluding land costs, and depending on added features.

The cost of an LV Home is below that of the average new single-family, site-built home, which was $183,371 in 2003, excluding land costs, according to the Missouri Manufactured Housing Association. The cost exceeds the average price of a new manufactured home, which was $59,800 in 2003. Breaking out of the traditional home mold is a slow process for the industry. Rocio knows that her modern design, with its higher price tag, isn’t an easy sell to high-volume manufactured home producers — hence her independent facility.

Having developed a larger version (LVL), a mini (LVM), a garage (LVG), and a design that meets code for 150 mile-per-hour wind loads (LV150), and working on two recreational prototypes — the Fish Camp and the Base Camp, she barely has time to consider the implications the LV Home will have on the industry. “Hopefully, the manufactured housing industry will provide more modern-looking homes or collaborate with modern architects,” she says. “Using prefabrication techniques will not only improve the physically built world but will appreciate in value over time, last longer, and have architectural significance.”

For more information, visit www.rocioromero.com.

—Sarah Magill Mueller

June 2006

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