How I Built An Amazing STR The SUPER HARD WAY!

[Daniel Bedell]

I was burnt out. For nearly fifteen years I had worked as a commercial photographer trying to balance art and commerce. I felt like I had failed. The commerce me had killed the creative me. The problem was that fifteen years of being a successful freelance photographer seemed to line me up perfectly well for…not a single thing. I had a new baby on the way, jobs had stopped coming in and I found myself solidly in a “what’s next” phase of life. Soon though I didn’t feel alone anymore, it was the beginning of 2020 and by March I was joined by much of the world in my “what’s next” quandary.

I was lucky though, I lived in suburban Colorado next to lots of park land and my wife had a secure job. But our second child was due in May and we had a toddler now sans childcare. Sometimes career paths are paved with degrees and dedication. Sometimes they are paved with desperation and diapers.

As Spring lockdown turned to Summer distancing and cabin fever became the new great malady, my wife told me how she’d heard a story about people wanting to rent RV’s and invade the outdoors. She reminded me that we had an RV. An RV I had bought a year earlier with the promise of renting it out to justify the purchase. Wouldn’t this be a fantastic time for me to actually do that? Like a good unemployed husband listening to the woman who’s name was on our only paycheck and had just birthed our child I complied.

This wasn’t our first go with short term rentals. Several years before we bought a decade old nineteen foot Airstream, parked it on a gravel driveway below our house, plopped down some red lawn chairs and put it on AirBnb. I can’t remember exactly why I thought people would want to stay in an Airstream in suburbia but it turned out a shocking amount of people did. Then we started renting our house out when we’d go on vacation. I was always surprised at its popularity despite a bold baby proofing motif. One year Belgian DJ dubstep duo Ganga White Night was playing Red Rocks Amphitheater and booked, they loved it so much regardless of the plastic wrapped balconies, locked cabinets and pink elephant themed baby room that they asked to rent it again the following year.

My wife was very right about RV demand and the calendar was quickly full of bookings. It became the summer of RV rentals and long bike rides to get ice cream with my three year old strapped behind me asking a steady stream of questions, a.k.a. Daycare. In between I started to wonder if maybe it was time to invest in a real income property.

To me the perfect short term rental property needed to be unique. Charming, but not too folksy. Close, but away from it all. Near outdoor activities, good food and some kind of water. It should have a great view and be easy to get to. It didn't have to be turn key, but not a major fixer upper, but still affordable. I wasn't picky, just particular...no, not particular…thoughtful.

Unfortunately, as my search for the perfect property began the same people who had rented RV’s and stormed into the wilds of American were also now on the search for a second property. Houses were getting snatched up fast and for well over asking. We bid on one place, but didn’t get it. I kept looking and kept looking, nothing was quite right. Too small, too remote, too old, too expensive, too crappy, too quaint, too rustic, too meh. Then one day my father-in-law said “Why not build?” I honestly hadn’t considered this but yes, why not build? It was a chance to get exactly what we wanted. I didn't want just a house, I wanted an experience, a destination. And like a confused Kevin Costner inexplicably wandering his cornfield at dusk I started to hear my own Ray Liota whispering to me, “If you build it…”

I can imagine if at that time AI chatbots had been a thing I may have asked it “Why not build?” Perhaps if I had asked for my answer in the form of a sonnet I could have gotten an Elizabeth Barrett Browning inspired “Let me count the ways” response. Actually, I can ask AI to do that for me now!

Oh no. This is way too accurate.

Oh, let me count the reasons, stark and clear,

Why in the Rockies, dreams might disappear.

Firstly, time's dance, a tango unforeseen,

Delays and setbacks, patience in between.

Secondly, budgets shift in mountain air,

A treacherous venture, costs rise with care.

Like winds that howl, a financial plight,

Draining pockets in the mountain's height.

Thirdly, expertise, a crucial call,

A craft refined to prevent the fall.

In rocky realms, build cautiously,

For seasoned skill shall guide to victory.

Oh, let me count the ways, with wisdom's might,

To pause the dream, build in clearer light.

Where were you CountTheWaysGPT when I needed you?

Then I saw a listing for a home in a community clustered around a tiny lake that rested between the granite peaked Thorodin Mountain to its East and the Continental Divide to its West. It was forty minutes from my house, next to the beautiful Golden Gate State Park, fifteen minutes to the casinos of Black Hawk, fifteen minutes to the quirky town of Nederland and twenty minutes to skiing. Had I actually found a spot that fit my pie in the sky criteria? It sure seemed like it. We were outbid on the home, but there were still unbuilt lots, though none for sale. I went on the county website, found the contact info for all the lot owners and started mailing out heartfelt letters describing why they should sell me their land.

I slowly started to get back a series of thanks but no thanks emails. But there was one property, the last lot on the lake that I had not heard back from. From my internet sleuthing I knew the owners were in at least their late seventies, lived all the way in Oregon and had owned it for nearly forty years. I wrote another letter to them under the auspices that perhaps the postal service had lost it. They hadn’t.

Finally one day I saw the email I had been waiting for, I clicked.

Daniel,

The area at and around Thorn Lake is truly magical. I can understand your interest. Our land there was a birthday present for my wife in the 1980's. We have held it since then and are not planning to sell because our children have asked us not to.

Good luck on your search.

It was disappointing, BUT, I now had contact, why not make an offer. The words of another man who came to Colorado with a dream and wasn’t daunted by a polite ‘no’ echoed in my head: 'So you're saying there's a chance!' - Lloyd Christmas, Dumb and Dumber.

I heard nothing for several days. So of course I emailed again, because perhaps Google lost it. They hadn’t. Then I got this email.

Hi Daniel,

Don't know what happened, but I didn't get your Monday email. This one did get us thinking though. We'll stay in touch.

A month later I owned a jewel of a property splashed with aspens and pines, hugging the shores of Thorn Lake. Somehow I had checked all the boxes. Now what to build? It just needed to be unique, highly desirable, generate cash flow for career freedom, create a legacy of memories and monetary liberation for my children and my children’s children. Ideally affordable, finished quickly and eco friendly!

I started combing the internet, magazines and books for ideas. The array of beautifully crafted, creative, bespoke homes were inspiring, but overwhelming. Where to even start? I didn’t have the skillset to build my own. I lacked the architectural knowledge to design my own. I didn’t even have a vision to describe to an architect.

What about modular? What about container homes? It was then that I found Honomobo. Based in Alberta, Canada that produced modular container homes of up to sixteen hundred square feet (they have since expanded to larger offerings). Honomobo seemed to be one of the few companies making larger modular container homes that had stayed in business. I also loved how they stripped away the industrial grit of the seacans (Canadian for shipping container) leaving an elegant square of steel, wood and glass that gave off cozy mod vibes barely hinted at its supply chain origins. All their units feature at least one whole wall of floor to ceiling windows and I could already dream of the lake and mountain views through them.

Choosing a company with brand recognition and following (they have over 70k followers on Instagram) was also appealing for my goal of creating a rental home that people would seek out. Factory built with its potential for less material waste was attractive. Honomobo offers very limited customizations of their products which consisted of models numbered 2 through 5, which corresponded to the number of 40x8x9.5 shipping containers that they used. The simplicity of the “I’ll take the number 5, with extra insulation and interior paint on the side” approach was appealing. While some people relish the chance to choose every drawer pull and outlet cover to me that sounded like decision hell. We decided to go with Honomobo.

The catch was they only built the house, it was up to me to get someone to do the site work. Colorado is one of the minority of states that lets owners act as their own general contractor. Land of the free home of the building brave. I decided to consult a few people to get their opinion about me acting as my own GC . One of my oldest friends, a laid back optimist, told me I was “totally” capable of pulling it off. A local excavator who I talked to about installing my septic also said it was doable and he would be happy to serve as a guide along the way. The one friend I knew who was actually a GC and had been one for over twenty-five years in Florida told me it was a bad idea. I loved ignoring “you shouldn’t” advice, but I decided this project was too big for my typical hard headed stupidity and I began looking for a GC.

It quickly became clear that building in a rural mountain area, despite being only an hour outside of Denver, meant a limited offering of contractors. I reached out to all of them and was excited when five quickly responded expressing enthusiasm for the project. Most of them said that they typically didn't take on modular projects, but this one piqued their interest. Meetings, emails and calls followed where I tried in vain to nail down an estimate of cost. I got lots of "I'm working on it" "trying to catch up" or the forever promise of, “I’ll have it to you next week.”

In the end they all backed out for one reason or another. My suspicion was that they decided site work alone wasn’t lucrative enough. Demand in the area was high and larger, more profitable jobs were easy pickings. Still, why did it take so long to say no? I have come to learn that trying to understand the space time, money continuum that most contractors operate in is a fool's errand.

"How much is that door going to cost and when can you get it?"

"All the money and maybe two years."

"What about the foundation, when could that be poured?"

"I’ll make a call, but most likely we could do that after lunch for less than expected.”

“Uhh okay.”

So there I was, the only GC I could turn to was the one in the mirror. Honomobo would do the hard parts in the factory. My grandfather built his house with his own two hands, how hard could this be? It seemed like mostly phone calls and emails. True, I never built anything more than a treehouse when I was eleven, but technically a treehouse is a house so…

All I had to do was work with Honomobo to finalize the design, get architectural drawings, receive HOA approval, get a county building permit, get a driveway permit, clear trees for a build site, find a logging truck to take those trees to a lumber mill, find a mill, find someone to take the lumber from the mill to my house, dry the lumber, take a semester of woodworking to learn how to make furniture, engineer/permit/build a septic system, get a well permitted and drilled, install a well pump, learn what a pitless is, install a water line from the pump to the foundation, install a pressure tank, connect the house plumbing to the septic and pressure tank, get the the power company to permit and install a podium for power on site, run power to the foundation, connect the power to the house, engineer a foundation, excavate, get two different sized steel wet plates fabricated, pour said foundation with wet plates mounted all at the same elevation in twenty-five precise locations, hire a crane, hire rigger, hire a welder, build a retaining wall because the dropoff from house to ground level was higher than expected, insulate the crawl space on my own by watching a YouTube video to learn how to load .22 caliber cartridges into a ramstead gun and shoot two and a half inch nails through insulation board into my foundation, badger a supply company until they finally delivered the right insulation board, get them to take away the wrong insulation board they brought that was broken by the wind and scattered into pieces all over the property, find an illusive 3x3 foot crawlspace door, learn how to use a core drill to make a four and a half inch hole in my foundation to install a code required fan to vent the crawlspace that my engineer thought was a stupid requirement and failed to tell me about, figure out what the hell going on when the Honomobo project manager tells me the measurements you gave him of the now poured foundation are wrong, have a panic attack, review plans with engineer, realized the project manager was mistaken, scream into the void, get the last available short term rental license application that had a thirty-day expiration window to pass all inspections, coordinate all subcontractors needed on install day, check with the sheriff about parking semi-trucks on the road, rent a porta potty, rent a dumpster, have coffee and donuts for everyone, oversee the Honomobo install crew that didn't need overseeing, pass a blower test, pass state inspection, pass septic inspection, build a wooden curb to cover protruding rebar for an unpoured patio, build a temporary front door landing that could theoretically be be permanent so as to pass final county inspection, get a certificate of occupancy, pass the county short term rental inspection on the very last day before it expired to get the very last available license so that I could rent the house to make money in order to no have immediately have to sell, pour the sidewalk and patio. Easy peasy.

There were a few slight distractions like figuring out financing, selling a neighboring lot (that I had also acquired via letter writing) on Craigslist, rent out my RV, rent out my house, make my first ever documentary film (a twenty minute short called Kara, Star Of The World about a woman with a traumatic brain injury from a childhood ski accident), take any photo and video work I could get, start a 360 photography company, create social media channels to hype the build, parent two small kids, do a beautiful and excruciating tandem mountain bike ride across Scotland, drive my family on RV trips to Colorado/Arizona/Utah/Nevada/California/Wisconsin/Minnesota/Michigan/Florida, attempt to write a novel and adopt a puppy.

The above may read as humble brag, it is not. It is a cautionary tale of taking on too much and breaking so many rules of good business and mental health. Reading it I can feel adrenaline and cortisol start to gush and my neck tighten. But the spoiler is everything got done. Did it take longer than projected, go over budget and nearly break me? You betchya!

With the build done my wife excitedly took on the role of interior decorator. Continuing the upcycled theme and working on a limited budget she cased Facebook Marketplace like she was preparing for a heist. We made shelves, desks and headboards from the wood we had milled. A few items too hard to make or find used we bought new. As a final touch we collected art to match different themes that connected us to the house.

The final result was beautiful, unique and better than I had hoped for. Modular for me was a helpful way to slim the ingredients needed to create a beautiful space. It was akin to the act of deciding on a category cuisine, picking a well regarded restaurant and trusting the chef.

Would I recommend my non-traditional route of building an income property to anyone else? No, no I wouldn’t. I am sure a seasoned investor would rightly say I would have been smarter spending the money on four duplexes in Dallas. Though impossible to measure, and a fraught investment metric there is a certain emotional capital gained by creating something beautiful that you love and can enjoy. There are so many routes to a dream home, this one happened to come in a very large pre packaged box.

If you got this far I hope you enjoyed something in my random mini memoir.

Daniel