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It’s small and quaint, and it’s home.

It’s called an Independence Cottage, provided by Drew Holdings Inc., a residential real estate development company that was founded by 22-year-old Nathan Drew.

A recent graduate of the University of Iowa, Drew has been developing the concept for his company since he was a freshman in college, and he even transferred schools to more adequately serve his ultimate plan: making his dream company into a reality.

Now, with a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Iowa, Drew has developed an affordable and efficient home, designed with active seniors in mind.

“It’s a 760-square-foot, single-story home that is designed to entice active seniors to downsize out of their current large homes, and move into a more efficient, manageable home,” Drew said. “With the Baby Boomer generation aging, it has made it so there are a lot more active seniors, and it’s going to continue that way. If you look at trends of housing, it basically goes that these people look to downsize as they get older.”

Striking a deal

The blueprints for the cottages were initially drafted by Lowe’s Cos. Inc. in response to Hurricane Katrina, and the structures were called Katrina Cottages, Drew explained. After Lowe’s drafted the blueprints for the small, affordable dwelling, a developer anticipated securing Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding to build the homes in the wake of Katrina, providing affordable housing for hurricane victims.

However, FEMA wouldn’t fund permanent dwellings and instead issued FEMA trailers, and the concept died. In turn, Lowe’s sold home building kits that provided the necessary materials needed to build a home based on the Katrina Cottage blueprints, and ceased partnerships with developers in the area who couldn’t secure FEMA funding.

And that’s when Drew stepped in.

“I just kind of ran across the Katrina Cottage right after it started,” Drew said, “and what happened is, I saw these plans and I flew down to Gulfport, Miss., where they were selling them in Lowe’s stores. I knew at the time that FEMA wasn’t giving money to these structures so I thought that maybe I could try to get government funding through a different program…. So, I bought two sets of the plans, (and) brought them back to Des Moines.

“I went to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and said, ‘What could we do with these?'”

With a few suggested alterations from the USDA on how to make the homes more efficient for the Midwest climate, Drew went back to Lowe’s and asked if the company could make the changes the USDA had suggested. Drew assured Lowe’s that he had a plan of action for the Katrina Cottage.

In agreement, and at its own expense, Lowe’s redrafted the blueprints and eliminated the pier foundation that’s common in the South – but not allowed in Iowa – and designed the homes to be built on crawl-space foundations instead. Now, Drew finally had two blueprints that allowed him to market cottages capable of withstanding Iowa winters, and that were in accordance with the USDA.

Picking a cottage

The two sets of blueprints that Drew received from Lowe’s were similar in design, yet had different total square footage. One home was smaller, totaling 684 square feet, and the other offered 760 square feet. The homes are built with nine-foot ceilings instead of the standard eight feet.

Both were one-story homes – ideal for senior living, Drew thought – and included a great room, a kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms: one 11 feet, 8 inches by 10 feet, 4 inches and the second 9 feet, 6 inches by 8 feet.

But despite their similarities, Drew said the cottages will not be cookie-cutter houses. He said that active seniors wishing to build a cottage can choose the color of the siding, different trim options, different flooring, and so forth.

One example that Drew shows interested clients is the cottage he recently built in Colfax. Working with local contractors, Drew’s first cottage was built in less than 60 days. The 760-square-foot home was built on a crawl-space foundation with no interior stairs, which makes all areas of the home more easily accessible for senior homeowners, he said.

Drew said most seniors with large houses don’t even utilize the entirety of their living space.

“Older couples are living in these big homes with all this extra room that they don’t necessarily need,” he said. “They’re actually cutting off levels. They are living on one floor in a multi-floor house…. They don’t need that much square footage.”

So, Drew has devised what he believes is the ideal solution: his Independence Cottage, with an asking price of $93,000 for the 760-square-foot cottage and an average monthly energy bill of $107.

“When you walk in, it seems a lot bigger than it actually is,” he said. “There’s not that much wasted space.”

Getting approval

However, these cottages can only be built if small towns are willing to bend a few rules, or better yet, rewrite them. Drew said most cities have planning and zoning ordinances that require homes to be at least 900 square feet with a frontage of 20 to 22 feet. Because Drew’s cottages are smaller than that, he will have to request a variance to change building guidelines in every town in which he wants to build.

“Normally when I go into a town and pitch this smaller housing deal, I have to request a variance or actually ask them to change their zoning and regulations, and in Colfax, I got them to change their zoning rules.”

Luckily, Drew’s cottages are 20 feet across the front, so he will only have to ask for slack in one area. And he said that he believes most small towns will be open to his proposal.

“I am all about small-town Iowa; I really like it,” he said. “My parents are from a small town, and that is something that helped spark this plan…. I’m confident that since I have one up and am continuing to do this, towns will work for me.”

Drew believes that if small towns rewrite the guidelines to allow him to build, his cottages will help decrease the “brain drain” from small-town Iowa.

“The idea is to get (seniors) to downsize to one of my units, therefore opening up a larger house in the community for a possible younger family to move into that was maybe renting before,” he said. “I feel like housing is something that people definitely look for when moving to a place, and if a couple could move back to a town that they grew up in, and have one of those nice homes, that would help bring them back to the community.”

Good timing

So it’s no surprise that even with a gloomy housing market, Drew remains optimistic about his new real estate venture.

“Let’s say the economy was booming right now and I came in at the age of 22 – who would really want to work for me?” he said. “Probably not many people, when they can work with people who have been in the business for a long time.

“So, it works out for me quite well. It’s actually kind of helpful for me, because it’s something people can afford.”

Drew said that he plans to finish his second home in Colfax soon and have a third cottage built thereafter. His goal is to sell all three homes by the end of 2008.

By taking it slow and steady, Drew plans to “creep under the radar and then when the housing market comes back, I’ll be there booming.”