They are in the furniture business, so Sam June and Bill Griffin know that any home can look good if enough money is thrown at it.
But when the budget is just $40,000, including the cost of the structure, looking good becomes a special challenge.
“We wanted it to look like a million dollars on a $1.50 budget,” said June, who will be the visual merchandiser at Norris Furnishings and Interiors, a Fort Myers-based retailer, when its new Sarasota store opens later this year.
Bill Griffin and Sam June at their mobile home off Bahia Vista Street in Sarasota. They bought the 1966 Ritz mobile home for $10.000 and spent another $10,000 refurbishing it. Staff photo / Harold Bubil;; 8-4-2015.
Restoring and updating the 1966 Ritz mobile home in Bahia Vista Estates, just east of Sarasota’s Pinecraft community, wasn’t much more than that on a per-square-foot basis. June and Griffin paid about $32 for each of the “trailer’s” 620 square feet to refresh and decorate the mobile home, which originally was a single-wide before a previous owner added two rooms that qualify it as a double-wide.
They paid $10,000 for the trailer, and spent $10,000 more repairing, restoring and updating — starting with a new roof membrane.
They use the trailer as an affordable second home/pied-a-terre while they are in town setting up the furniture store.
“It was nice to just write a check for a home and own it Scot-free,” said Bill Griffin, who is Norris’ director of retail planning and visual merchandising. They do pay $580 a month to rent the land on which their Ritz sits. The electric bill is $60; cable TV is extra.
June said the unit was a “dirty, dull, chalky white” when they bought it. They cleaned the exterior, painted the front door an appealing shade of coral and did some simple landscaping in the front planter.
“People stop and give us the thumbs up and love what we have done with the place,” June said.“It is the classic look,” said Griffin.
After fixing the roof and restoring the exterior, the started on the inside by having most everything removed. Some of the furniture, including the buffet, is original. The paneling was cleaned and painted. Above the three windows at the front of the trailer, the inside of two built-in bookcases were painted coral as a splash of accent color. The same color appears in the dining area. “We wanted to stay cohesive and not bring in a lot of colors like most people do,” June said.
The couple enjoy midcentury modern design, and their strategy for the interior was to use recycled furnishings bought on the cheap.
“Everything in the home is either from an estate sale or a thrift shop. Our neighbor was going to toss this,” said June, pointing to the glass-topped dining room set, “and I had the landscape guy bring it over for $5. I stripped it down and put 10 coats of white spray paint on it. The cushions were fine; we just cleaned them up.”
At a consignment shop in Naples, June and Griffin found a cocktail table from Baker’s Milling Road collection. “It retails for $2,800 and I got it for $40,” June said.
The second home of Sam June and Bill Griffin at Bahia Vista Estates in Sarasota is decorated with recycled furniture.Coral, gray and white dominate the simple color palette. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 7-14-2015.
Knowing what to buy and for how much is half the battle when furnishing such small spaces. The other half is understanding the size of the furnishings in proportion to the surroundings.“The toughest thing about living in a trailer, when you buy one and furnish it, is scale,” Griffin said. “Everything works. We measured every piece of furniture we bought to make sure it was going to work.
”The kitchen has original fixtures, but a new black refrigerator. They used industrial-grade carpet throughout the trailer to unify the space, except for linoleum in the kitchen, bathroom and hallway. Baseboards are the same gray color as the walls so as to not make spaces look smaller by emphasizing the borders.
The teapot is a Michael Graves original, “not from Target,” said June. “We got it for $3 from Goodwill. Sarasota has the best thrift stores.”
“We freshened the bathroom with paint and linoleum,” June said. “The cabinet is original. The Lucite knobs, we got out of an estate sale on Bird Key. They were tearing down a midcentury estate, and the lady said, ‘Take all the knobs out of the bathrooms; you can have them for $3.’ ”
June and Griffin see themselves on the leading edge of the rebirth of the mobile home as an affordable retirement alternative for baby boomers.
“Mobile homes are the best deal around because you own it,” June said. “It is the old thing of keeping expenses down.”
They understood they were able to buy the aging trailer so cheaply because mobile homes depreciate, just as any other vehicle (even though most of them aren't very mobile at all). Trailer owners have a title to the unit, as one would have to a car, and often they rent the land. The land is the thing that appreciates, but it is owned by the trailer park owner.
The resident is left with a depreciating asset, although one that is more affordable than the typical house or condo.
“I just did not want the exorbitant fees of a condo, and assigned parking, living in a building where you are sharing hallways, much less a multi-level building,” Griffin said. “I didn’t want to deal with stairs and elevators. We own the unit; we just lease the land.
“It is like having a small house, and it is a very untapped market. The more I talk to people, it is kind of tweaking their interest. People ask if it is a 55-plus community. Yes, but all of us are getting to that age group. Secondly, it is a very affordable type of living.
“For those who don’t want to live in the condos, it is a totally untapped market for our age group. It is smart and affordable. You have to think of options that are cost effective so that you can do it.
”The idea is gaining traction as mobile-homes shed their reputation as declasse’ housing. Even a few architects are reinventing the mobile home with high design, and high price tags, too, of more than $100,000.Units for sale in Bahia Vista Estates range from $15,900 (a 1962 Gene at 820 square feet) to $39,000 (a Suncoaster at 1,128 square feet).
