Is Small Home Village built yet? Can I move in?
No. This is a vision and a two-partner joint venture in its earliest stage. There are no built or occupied homes, no permits in hand, no homes for sale, and no move-in dates. The specific parcel hasn't even been chosen yet. Everything on this site is clearly labeled as plan. The one real thing you can do today is join the list.
Where exactly is it?
The target region is the Cedar Creek area of Bastrop County, Texas — unincorporated land about 20–25 miles southeast of Austin, roughly half an hour up Highway 71. The specific build parcel is still being scored and selected among candidates in Bastrop and adjacent Travis County. See the Cedar Creek page for the full site picture.
How big are the homes?
The plan is permanent small homes in the 200-to-800-square-foot range, on real slab or pier foundations — not homes on wheels and not RVs. Most would be on the smaller end (200–500 sq ft), with a few larger family-sized units. The small-homes page breaks down sizes, foundations, and build methods.
Is this a tiny-house Airbnb park or an RV lot?
No. It's a residential community for year-round residents, with permanent homes on permanent foundations and a written community agreement. It is explicitly not a short-term-rental park, not an RV lot, and not a commune. Private homes, shared infrastructure, real bookkeeping.
What would a home cost?
No price has been set, and we won't invent one — that would violate the honesty this project is built on. For general context only, independent 2025 market data puts tiny-home construction at roughly $30,000 to $150,000+ to build (land separate), with per-square-foot costs that run high because a small home still needs a full kitchen, bath, and mechanicals. Those are market figures, not a Small Home Village offer.
What's actually shared versus private?
Your home and its interior, your own kitchen and bath, your income, and your belongings stay private. The community building, the workshop and major tools, the garden and its harvest, the guest room, and shared utilities are held in common under the written agreement. It's designed to be enough shared to make the economics work, enough private that it never becomes a commune.
How would utilities work out there?
Under the plan, electricity comes from Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative (the Bastrop-based member co-op serving Central Texas since 1939), water from Aqua Water Supply Corporation (the non-profit co-op serving most of Bastrop County), plus rooftop solar and a backup well. Wastewater is a county-permitted On-Site Sewage Facility (OSSF) — the Texas term for a septic system — designed per a licensed soil evaluation. Details and sources are on the Cedar Creek and Commons pages.
Do I have to be a maker or an engineer to live there?
No, though the village is aimed squarely at people who make things — tradespeople, artists, engineers, remote workers, small-shop owners — because the shared shop and the affordability model are built for them. The real requirement under the plan is fit with a self-managed community that shares space and signs a common agreement.
Who is behind it, and are they credible?
It's a joint venture between Anil Pattni's Tiny Hacker House and Paul Walhus's WholeTech. Pattni is an Austin futurist who founded Tiny Hacker House in 2010 and has run sixteen years of hackathons, makerfaires, and field-built housing experiments. Walhus brings land in the Cedar Creek area, thirty years of Austin web infrastructure, and the publishing pipeline this site runs on. Sources are linked on the Vision page.
Is this based on a proven model?
Yes — it draws directly on cohousing, which has a forty-year track record in the United States: private homes clustered around shared space, managed by residents under a written agreement. The Cohousing Association of the United States (cohousing.org) documents the model and its defining characteristics, which the village follows closely.
Can I invest?
The village is structured as a two-partner joint venture with the partners' own skin in the game, not as an investment fund seeking outside capital. If that ever changes it would be stated plainly and handled properly. For now the honest answer is: this isn't an investment offering.
How do I stay updated?
Join the list. It's an occasional, honest dispatch — when a parcel is chosen, when permits are filed, when the first foundation is poured, and when the first homes actually open. No spam and no platform middlemen.