Best Friends Built Private Neighborhood to Grow Old Together
They are the best friends who built private neighborhood to grow old together. Basically, they created “Bestie Row” to stay best friends forever.
When I was little, I used to dream with my childhood friends that we’ll all live in a house when we would be older, and that everything was going to be epic.
After a while, we grew apart and the dream became just a dream. But not for these best friends who built a tiny village so they could grow old together.
Yes, it is difficult to stay in touch with old friends when life has other plans for you, but these best friends found an amazing way to stay close forever.
It is the story of eight longtime friends who live near Austin, Texas, and they wanted a way to ensure that even with families, their friendship won’t be over.
The eight friends are in reality four couples, which turned their little houses into a little neighborhood.
Their little village is just outside of Austin, near the Llano River, which they built with the help of architect and designer Matt Garcia. He helped them build four tiny houses near each other they called it the “Llano Exit Strategy,” or “Bestie Row.”
Fred Zipp and his wife, Jodi, one of the couples living in the tiny houses, told a publication that they’ve met with the rest of the group about 20 years ago, when they all moved to Austin around the same time, and they all wanted a place where they could gather together. So, they did it.
Zipp said they were first thinking about building a large house that all eight of them would share, but they later decided that they needed personal space.
So they settled on building four tiny houses that are about 350 square feet each. There is, however, a 1,500 square foot gathering space in the center of the compound designed for entertaining.
Architect Matt Garcia also has a history with the Zipp family, as he designed their other home in Austin many years ago and became good friends with the couple.
The architect said that he took inspiration for the design from the architecture in Texas, specifically the silos.
“The large grain silos and grain elevators were so beautiful, extremely minimal and industrial,” he said, adding that the design “fit perfectly for the Llano cabins.”
Inside, the homes were designed with a rustic-yet-modern look, with wood-paneled walls and ceilings and concrete floors, and able to be cold in the summer and warm in the winter.
“If anything ‘good’ came out of the recession, it was people hitting reset and realizing they don’t need so much space and stuff to be happy,” he said. “I love it. And I feel proud to be working with clients who have had that realization, that less is more.”
Would you want to take your friends a built your own tiny village?
