For Chattanooga entrepreneur Brian Morris, the tiny house experience is about closeness.
“Our model is to create an amazing experience around intimacy with nature and people,” he said.
Morris is the co-owner of a Lookout Mountain tiny house rental community, Live A Little Chatt.
Morris and his business partner Joe Curro brought luxury tiny house rental to the area in 2016 and are among other local businesses, such as Wind River Tiny Homes and Tiny House Campground, that see big potential in downsizing life, even if only temporarily.
Tiny homes have been the focus of TV shows and have been positioned as a potential solution to homelessness, although a 2016 effort to create a low-cost tiny home community in Ooltewah failed.
We hadn’t checked into the tiny house scene here in a few years, so we wanted to see what’s new.
First, check out these details. ⬇️
FastFacts
✅ A tiny house can cost as little as $10,000. TheSpruce.com estimated that the median cost for a tiny home with all the essential conveniences was $59,884.
✅ Although the trend has made a comeback in recent years, living small isn’t really a new concept. Curbed.com traced the idea back to Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden.”
✅ Generally, tiny homes are between 100 and 400 square feet.
✅ The power bill for three tiny houses in the middle of summer was about $60, Curro told us in 2016. The water bill costs “next to nothing.”
✅ You’ll need somewhere to park your tiny home. (There’s a local option. More on that later).
To understand it, try it
“I stayed in a tiny house in Portland, Oregon in 2012 and that was the trigger I needed for me to start building my own,” Morris said. “I was interested but I needed to experience it first. You don’t spend $300 on a pair of boots until you try them on.”
Live A Little Chatt allows people to test the tiny houses. Customers use the experience as a vacation.
“In our country and culture, we work really hard and people take their vacation very seriously,” he also said. “It’s been a cool thing to offer something special and let people relax.”
In 2017, Live A Little Chatt moved from the base to the top of Lookout Mountain. An unexpected deal made Morris’ dream of living on land where he could paraglide off his property a reality.
He and Curro moved three tiny homes to the edge of the mountain and now they offer paragliding to customers, along with other amenities that encourage people to spend time outside, with their loved ones and/or getting to know their “neighbors.”
The duo provides a bottle of wine and S’mores to help entice people to their porches or fire pits, where they could also chat with others who are staying in the tiny homes.
“I think by not cluttering yourself with junk and TV—we do have Wi-Fi but it’s not very good—by design, it works well because people spend more time outside connecting with nature, connecting with your inner child,” he said.
But it’s something that you have to try to understand, Morris said.
Most people feel sure they couldn’t live in such a small space, but they don’t realize how the tiny homes are built to be efficient and still provide all the essential living necessities, Morris said.
By the numbers — Live A Little Chatt
3 Current number of tiny homes available
1 Tiny house to be added in coming months
200 Square footage of two of the homes; the other one is 120 square feet
11 Number of people who could comfortably stay in the three houses, which can all be rented at once
159 You can stay at Live A Little Chatt for $159 a night.
Want to park your tiny house?
In 2014, Rich Johnson turned an “unused, rundown” 1.4 acre-property in nearby McDonald, Tennessee, into a private campground that currently has one spot for a tiny house on wheels. The campground provides water, power, sewer hookup, lawn care + trash pickup.
He hopes to create more spaces for tiny homes in the future and said the last guest stayed for two years. There’s no limit on how long you can stay there with a tiny home, although there’s a long-term discount through Airbnb. The space can be booked for two days or six months at a time, he said.
“We think it’s a great movement,” Johnson said of the tiny house trend. “It seems to promote travel, getting outdoors more, environmentally friendly, and freedom to go where you want more easily.”
You can also park a tiny house on your own property or a friend’s. Are there other parking solutions we’ve missed? Let us know by responding to this email.
Readers respond
We asked readers to weigh in on whether they’d be interested in downsizing to a tiny home and whether they’d ever tried one before.
In our Instagram poll, 69 people said they’d never stayed in a tiny house. Fourteen people had tried the experience.
Here’s what else you all had to say.
👖 “Tiny houses are like skinny jeans...they’re nice to put on but you realize you’re way too big for them after a while.” @schooldaysphotography
👪 “I could see living in a tiny house if it were just me or me and my husband. As it is, we have two small children, so that would be beyond impractical. I would definitely consider it for a vacation.” @lilyandivysmom
💌 “Love them! Especially the locally made ones.” @noogamade
🏡 “Definitely a weekend stay but I couldn’t live in one unless it had a walk in closet.” @treston_tanner
🏡 “Tiny homes are cute and cozy. Perfect for a couple’s weekend getaway.”
More resources
✅ Wind River Tiny Homes — which is a local business that designs and builds tiny homes — has more information about why they believe in living tiny and about costs + other practical issues.
✅ The Veterans Community Project — which seeks to build a tiny-home community for homeless veterans in Kansas City — takes steps to provide not only a home but a community for the homeless. The Washington Post highlighted communities, including Nashville, that had used tiny homes to combat homelessness.
✅ Tiny homes can be an environmentally friendly option as more people trade space for an eco-friendly minimalist lifestyle. Learn more about how the switch to the tiny home reduces carbon emission while also saving money here.
