Custom 28-Foot Mobile Home Brings Some Art Deco Flare to Tiny Living

Tiny houses (THOWs, or tiny homes on wheels) have gained incredible popularity over recent years, mostly due to socioeconomic factors like the travel restrictions of 2020, working from home, and the housing and financial crises that followed. In reality, though, tiny houses had been building momentum long before that, working their way from the outskirts of the housing industry into the spotlight.

Today, you're quite literally spoiled for choice, should you consider downsizing from a brick-and-mortar home – be it a city apartment or a house in the suburbs – to a tiny house. As long as you're aware that there will be a series of compromises to be made and are willing to make them, tiny living can bring about many benefits.

Among lower living costs, a higher degree of affordability, more intentional living, a reduced carbon footprint, and the promise of year-round travel at the drop of a hat, there's the possibility of having a home that's the mirror expression of your personality. Builders like Oregon, U.S.-based Tru Form Tiny do that with customization of standard models.

Tru Form Tiny is on the higher end of the tiny house market, specializing mostly in oversize and park model tinies. The Urban Payette introduced almost two years ago sits right at the outside border of park models, being built on top of a triple-axle trailer with 28 feet (8.5 meters) in length and 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) in width. Even assuming local regulations will allow you to tow it without special permits, it's perhaps best if you didn't move it around as you would a smaller unit.

That's the number one compromise with a larger tiny house: a bigger footprint will always mean less mobility. But it won't ever mean a bland or uninspired home or, at least, not if this builder has a say in it.

The unit we're looking at today is a custom take on the Urban Payette model, which was originally styled as a rustic home. Rustic styling is gorgeous, but within a compact footprint, it can crowd the space and overwhelm the senses. This unit does away with that and, because of it, lives like an entirely different tiny, sleeker, more elegant, and more zen.

This is an Urban Payette done in minimalist styling with certain Art Deco touches that add flare without taking up too much space visually. Because of this, this unit seems almost as large as the true park models from the builder: a true luxury mini-mansion on wheels.

The Urban Payette employs a double-loft layout to create a home suitable for a family of four, with sleeping relegated to the upper "level." In this custom unit, both lofts are left empty. The larger one, situated over the bathroom and featuring a wall divider, can be used as the main bedroom, but the smaller loft over the living room can effectively double as a home office, an extra lounge space, or even as a storage room.

The ground floor holds the living room, made to feel larger thanks to a bumpout, a compact but full kitchen, a small dining nook and an even smaller desk space, and the bathroom. As a standard, Tru Form includes a laundry station in the bathroom of most of their models, but we can't tell if that's the case here as well. However, there's a dishwasher in the kitchen and a Ring security system at the door.

The exterior is Triocoya panel siding with tight-knot cedar accents, a gabled metal roof, and double-pane low-E windows. The builder has added a drop-down cedar deck in front of the living room as standard, expanding available living space to the outside. Expansive glazing, including a couple of large skylights, allows in plenty of natural light and helps create the impression of a less cluttered, more airy space.

Described as timelessly elegant and "truly a work of art," this custom tiny lives up to the hype, too. In the process, it confirms that while the devil might be in the details, so is the ability to express yourself through your mobile home. Tiny houses might be compact and implicitly more compromise-heavy, but they're also highly personalizable and stylish.

That, of course, comes at a price – and that's probably the "but" you were anticipating. A standard Urban Payette tiny from Tru Form starts at $94,500 but proper customization can nearly double the price.

Tiny houses have come a very long way from their rather humble beginnings in the early 2000s, but the one thing that hasn't changed about them is prohibitive pricing. Sure enough, they're affordable compared to brick-and-mortar homes, but they remain expensive for the square footage they offer.