When retirement is approaching, we think about where we will spend it, where we will feel happy and comfortable. We want to see our family and friends, and not have to travel for hours by car to see them. Best friends from Texas put their money and heads together and built a small town where they plan to spend their retirement and get older near their loved ones. Together they built low-floor ecological cabins.
Eight friends, four couples, have known each other for over 20 years. Among other things, they are connected by the interest in ecology. They want to see each other more often and don’t have to travel far.
Family Settlement
Friends collected their money and threw themselves into a common plan. The cabin, designed and designed by architect Matt Garcia, costs around $ 40,000. Texas is a very dry country, so they are aware that water must be treated with sensitivity. The roofs are designed to catch and drain rain into large barrels and tanks, up to 50,000 gallons (ca. 189,000 liters).
Fred Zipp, who will be living at the settlement with his wife Jodi, commented:
“This is a magical place, but it’s arid.
We’re doing what we can to reserve as much water as possible for the native trees and grasses. Fortunately, they’re beautiful.”
The couples have named their settlement the “Llano Exit Strategy”, based on its location near Aaustin, Texas, close to the Llano river.
Tiny Cabin Design
The exterior walls are made of reflective material that reflects heat on hot summer days and maintains the optimum temperature in the cabins. The interiors are built of cut plywood for their lower price.
“We just wanted something warm feeling that would offset the coolness of the metal on the outside,” Garcia says of the look, which splits the difference between industrial chic and down-to-earth. The floors are simply poured concrete, left a natural-looking gray. “It’s a high-design finish that doesn’t cost a lot of money,” he adds.
Weather in Texas allows you to spend most of the year outdoors, so the cabins themselves are designed mainly for sleeping. The architect Garcia designed and built a state-of-the-art 1500 square feet (450 square meters) common space dedicated to entertainment and cooking.
The Llano Exit Strategy
Zipps and their friends are not yet ready for retirement. The vegetable garden still needs planting. There is still work to be done, but they have amazing prospects of spending time together in a close circle of friends overlooking the Llano river.
Fred’s wife Jodi says, they’ve been overjoyed at the way the Llano Exit Strategy has worked out. “It’s like a Disney movie out here,” she says. “We have hare, bobcat, deer, and all kinds of birds. As we spend more and more time here, we find more and more.”
Source & credit: https://themindunleashed.com/2019/09/best-friends-build-tiny-town-grow-old-together.html
