QUESTION: What is a “simple, decent, affordable” house?

Not too long ago there was a house in Knoxville advertised for sale for $40 million. The 44,500 square foot mansion has 49 rooms, 16 bathrooms, 11 fireplaces, and a six-car garage. The white marble patio is 100 feet wide. A friend of the owner reported his enjoyment at watching the butlers (note the plural) feed the 150 or so goldfish in the pond. The house was built and appointed by expert craftsmen and boasts a ceiling mural in the large foyer, as well as a winding staircase right out of “Gone With the Wind.”

Not too long ago there was a house in Lenoir City sold for $75,000. It’s a cozy 1,056 square foot home with 3 bedrooms, one bath, and a kitchen-dining-living room area. The house was built by volunteers of varying skill levels, using basic building materials. The kitchen boasts ready-to-assemble cabinets right out of a box at Home Depot. The owner painted the plastic mailbox blue to match the shutters.

Habitat for Humanity builds simple, decent, affordable, “no frills” houses. But we’ve found that—like beauty—“frills” are in the eyes of the beholder.

Habitat for Humanity has always had a policy of keeping house designs simple so as to use the minimum amount of building materials that is reasonable, but as prices for homes, land, and building materials have skyrocketed, we’ve become even more conscious of what “no frills” really means.

Our new volunteers are sometimes surprised that we don’t build garages, or that we don’t provide dishwashers or garbage disposals for our homes. These are on the official list of “frills” discouraged by Habitat for Humanity International.

For us, it just makes sense not to build garages. First, most of the lots we build on are too small for a garage. Second, the cost of adding a garage would make the house unaffordable to some of our families who are already watching pennies to cover food, shelter and other bare necessities.

Most of us grew up in homes where the kids did the dishes after the evening meal. Taking out the garbage meant bagging the food garbage and walking out to a barrel in the back yard. This was just a part of everyday life that taught children the value of teamwork and the responsibility of being part of a family. These days we’ve grown accustomed to having a dishwasher, and flipping the switch on the garbage disposal has become almost a reflex as we clean up the dinner dishes. But these are frills, also.

So why do some of our Habitat houses have dishwashers despite the “no frills” guidelines? Sometimes a relative or the organization that sponsors their house purchases a dishwasher for the family, or the family has scraped together enough money to buy a basic dishwasher themselves. In these cases, we’ll design the kitchen cabinets with a space for the dishwasher, and our plumbing subcontractor will install it for no additional charge.

Ceiling fans are another “frill” that is not provided by Habitat. As we work with our partner families to design their houses, we give them the option to purchase their own ceiling fans instead of using the generic ceiling light fixtures we would otherwise install. If the family chooses ceiling fans, our team of electrical volunteers will install them to make sure they’re wired safely and correctly and that they’ll pass the electrical inspection.

Most of the homes we build are beautifully landscaped—some include rock borders, medium-sized trees, and steppingstones. Habitat provides only the grass seed and straw; everything else is donated by the Eagle Scout candidates, local garden clubs, or sponsoring churches who have adopted the landscaping. Those groups also assume responsibility for designing and organizing the project, and for recruiting and overseeing the volunteers.

Our Habitat homes are well built and well loved. They may not be worth $40 million to a Realtor, but in the eyes and hearts of our new homeowners, they’re priceless.

Posted 12/18/07