Photography by Frank Di Piazza
A pearl in the middle of a crusty shell … A gold nugget glinting at the bottom of a creek bed … A diamond hidden amidst the rock of a mine.
A modern minimalist masterpiece in Perryville, Mo.
Drive past two hulking wooden hog barns, and there it glitters in the sun, a rectangular white, glass-and-steel jewel-like structure stunning in its simplicity.
And when we say simplicity, we mean simple, as in: Attach Wall “A” to Wing Post “1.” Inhale deeply. This beauty’s a prefab.
Its creator? Rocio Romero, a 35-year-old designer, manufacturer and entrepreneur.
Don’t recognize the name? You will.
She’s making history.
On this day, Rocio Romero’s car has broken down, and she hitches a ride with an assistant from her office in municipal Perryville back to the house on 70 acres she shares with her husband, healthcare executive Cale Bradford, whose office is based in nearby Cape Girardeau.
Few people are so spick-and-span that their house can actually double as a display. “There is an expression in Spanish that goes like this: ‘A clean space is a clean mind,’” says Ms. Romero, a self-confessed neat freak. “When everything is clean, you can just relax and not fret about putting things away.”
The counters? Bare to the stainless bone. Tabletops? A smattering of magazines. With the exception of two political posters, the walls are equally pristine.
“It is very clean, simple, modern,” Ms. Romero says. “It is who we are.”
She is a lovely young woman. Quiet, understated, a tad shy and totally charming, she appears a little bit—but pleasantly—befuddled by all the hubbub over her creations.
The house, dubbed the LV, consists of a living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms and two baths. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Ms. Romero first created the design as a summer house for her parents, sited on land owned by her grandmother in Laguna Verde (which explains the LV appellation) outside Santiago, Chile. When she re-created the house for the American market, she made the house 4 feet wider and enlarged the kitchen and bedrooms. More recently, she added an option of making it even bigger.
“When we first started, we had wing posts that only spanned up to 10 feet,” she says. “Now we have upgraded that to steel posts that allow us to go up to 15 feet. That gives people more versatility in how they create their bedrooms and spaces.”
The houses have been described in dwell as “a delicate balance between affordability, efficiency and aesthetics.” In a lengthy New Yorker piece, architecture critic Paul Goldberger called the LV “an exceptionally beautiful house. There is nothing funky about the LV.” He pointed out that the normal banalities—like gutters—are hidden—“so that when you look at her house all you see is a clean, pure box. The proportions are pleasing, and the details elegant; the foundation supports have been recessed slightly, giving the house that appearance of hovering.”
All the Romero prefabs are 25 feet, 1 inch wide. LV lovers have choices ranging from a 625-square-foot studio (or garage) to a 1,453-square-foot home. The kit includes post and beam, exterior wall and faux wall panels (manufactured in Perryville), roof framing, select connectors, siding materials and detailed instructions, and costs anywhere from $19,992 for a garage (LVG) to $23,650 for a studio (LVM) on up to $45,225 for a two-bedroom, two-bath house (LVL150).
At first, those base price tags ring like finding new Prada for next to nothing on eBay. But let the bidding begin. Once all the glass, floors, innards and details have been added, the price jumps to $120–$190 per square foot—not exactly bargain-basement but still a deal by today’s standards (according to local sources, average price per square foot runs from $150 on up to a whopping $450 on the high end).
Romero aficionados flock online through a Yahoo! Group called LVHomeFans, exchanging information, swapping price lists and offering to help each other build their respective LVs. A recent homebuilder in Houston priced out his LV home at a total of $235,550.
“It’s healthy to have a community that chats and shares tips—as long as that other guy doesn’t take the plans and just build it,” Ms. Romero says. “The neat thing is you can sense the enthusiasm and the excitement. How many homes do you know of that people are volunteering to build so they can understand? It’s like a Modernist Habitat for Humanity.”
That enthusiasm is on a sky-bound trajectory. A reception for Rocio Romero held in April at DWR in the Central West End was jammed with some 200 admirers.
It wasn’t always thus.
“When I first started out, I did not sell a home for six months,” she says. “It was really frustrating, because I knew this was a good idea. Modern prefab is a really great tool for people who love modern architecture but have heard all those nightmare stories about things not turning out right. Prefab is a nice solution to get the design more easily than it would be if it were stick-built. With the kit, they know what they are getting.”
At first, she was the only one out there with a prefab modern. But after others mimicked her brainstorm, her cash register started to sing “cha-ching.”
“At first I thought, ‘Oh, competition. That’s not good. I want to be the only one doing this,’” she recalls. “Then I thought, ‘Hmm, this might be better than I thought.’” Now in her fourth year in business, she has sold more than 100 homes.
One thing that should kick up the ticker is the fact that LV buyers are now buying more than one unit and putting them together. Ms. Romero and staff customize the design for every house—doing site plans, moving walls, enlarging baths and closets, converting bedrooms into exercise rooms, home theaters, offices—whatever the owner wants. The LVs also come in 30 different colors. Ms. Romero reports that she just sold her first red one. And for those who find one LV a bit too confining, she has a two-story version on her drafting board.
“As a designer I feel it is really important to listen to the clients, because in the end they will be living in the space,” Ms. Romero says. “That, for me, is the ultimate test for success. Making my clients happy with what they are living in.”
Not-So-Thoroughly Modern Midwest
LV Houses have been purchased by homeowners in 28 states—with a preponderance on both coasts. One has been purchased by a local couple.
One.
However, Rocio Romero is cautiously optimistic about local acceptance of modern design. “I see promise in the loft projects downtown,” she says. “I see young talent that could provide more modern housing. I think those elements could push St. Louis in a more modern direction—but it really doesn’t exist right now.”
One problem is that banks are loathe to lend money for a design that hasn’t been built, hasn’t been sold and hasn’t established comparable value.
“If you are the first person to build it, then you don’t have a comp,” she says. “But then the second person builds it, and they get really lucky because they have a comp to compare it to the other modern homes. “There are a lot of people with modern sensibilities and taste. Look at the DWR event. There were a ton of people there, they all love modern architecture and they are all looking for a place to put it. I was like, ‘We should network everyone here, and we should start a community.’”
