Happy New Year to our High Desert friends. For us, the year began with a burst of activities — new managed properties, new renovation projects, new new-builds and surging interest from investors looking for opportunities.
Here are just a few of the things that have us very busy at the start of the new year:
SMALL HOMES ARE BIG — AND WE ARE RIGHT THERE!
We’ve long been proponents of smaller homes. One of the new projects we are most excited about is our development of a 560-square-foot, single-family residence. We are building two of these prototypes in partnership with investors in a beautiful hillside area between Joshua Tree and Yucca Valley. To be known as Pause House, we anticipate these will be the first of a larger collection of smaller homes that we will develop in the area.
Follow this link to read the press release we just issued about this exciting new project.
TWO NEW HOMES UTILIZING OUR SISTER COMPANY’S STEEL FRAME
Most of you know that I have two companies — Blue Sky Building Systems, in addition to Homestead Modern (Blue Sky is best known for its prefabricated steel frame system that can allow a home to float over the landscape). And it’s always gratifying when these two entities get to collaborate on a project. That’s the case right now with two new, exciting homes being built in the High Desert.
The one that is most far along is a house we are building for two friends in spectacular Gamma Gulch (just north of Pioneertown). To be known in the short-term vacation rental market as High Desert Fade, this two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,200-square-foot home was designed with high ceilings and loads of glass to capture the towering boulders that characterize Gamma Gulch. We expect Fade to be ready for its first renters in March.
The other Blue Sky / Homestead collaboration project under construction in the High Desert right now is being built for a client in one of the best areas of Joshua Tree — The Highlands (directly adjacent to the national park). Of a similar design as Fade (same architect — Andrew Goodwin, AIA, LEED AP, principal of the firm AGD), this spectacular 1,440-square-foot home will enter the short-term vacation rental market at its anticipated completion in May.
GET READY FOR MORE DINNERS IN GAMMA GULCH!
It was my pleasure to meet many of you last year at the catered outdoor dinners we did at my homestead cabin in Gamma Gulch. We will soon be announcing a new series of these dinners and I hope to meet even more of you there. If you want to put your name on our interest list for these dinners, click here. Note: They tend to sell out very quickly so be ready to jump!
PALM SPRINGS LIFE ARTICLE ABOUT GAMMA GULCH HOME
Speaking of my homestead cabin in Gamma Gulch….I got a kick recently when Palm Springs Life magazine asked me to pen a story about how I came to live there and the project it took to breathe new life into the old cabin. Follow this link for the story — and glorious Lance Gerber photos!
DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS EXCITING NEW BODEGA?
Quick shout out to Carmen Mello and her wonderful new bodega in Old Town Yucca Valley. If you haven’t yet walked into Desierto Alto (across the highway from Frontier Café), you are in for a treat. Carmen is stocking a wonderful array of food and liquor brands (and much more) not available anywhere else in the area. We need more of her sort of vision here!
