HENDERSON COUNTY, N.C. — A tiny home community in Flat Rock is offering affordable houses to hundreds of people.
Simple Life Community calls itself “a cottage home community with private amenities for people who value living life over maintaining things.” It offers more than 150 houses on its property, with plans of growing even more.
The community’s website says the idea began in 2015 when its leaders realized there was a significant gap in options for affordable, low-maintenance homes for people wanting a community lifestyle.
The community attracted Nancy Bossi, who recently made the move from the New England area. She and her husband have a son who lives in Charlotte and during visits, they would stop and visit the tiny home community, before finally making the decision to move after retiring.
Bossi is a big arts and crafts person and said a sewing and craft room was essential. Though she had to downsize several hundred square feet, she was still able to make do with proper organization.
Bossi loves the simplicity of the tiny home, saying it fits all their needs and is a lot lower of maintenance than what they were used to.
“So, we don’t have to do projects every day at the house,” Bossi said. “Our other house was 45 years old so it took a lot of daily maintenance, whereas here in 20 to 30 minutes we can clean the whole house top to bottom.”
Her husband was even able to add on a shed that he works out of for his various construction projects.
When asked what her favorite part of living there was, Bossi said the community she has there is like none other.
“We have 150ish families here so there’s a lot of different craft people with different crafting abilities so we have fun getting together, talking and sharing that,” she explained.
Elizabeth Dohony is Simple Life’s Community Manager. She’s also a former resident of the community. Dohony said she became enamored with the cottage-home-living and once presented with the opportunity to work for it, she knew she couldn’t resist.
“These homes are built to high-quality standards yet they are attainable for people in a vast majority of income ranges, being able to offer more housing to more people with different backgrounds and lifestyles,” she explained.
Having once lived here, Dohony said she knows how much money is saved having limited space.
She said counties throughout the state and even across the country should consider a community like this, offering more affordable housing options.
Simple Life also has an RV park, community garden, fitness center, pool and dog park.