“It’s like having a million-dollar home but at a fraction of the price,” says Luanne Matto, as quoted by Kate Murphy in The New York Times (6/14/07). Luanne is the proud owner of a “park model” — an upscale trailer home that sits on “a shaded and grassy 100-by 60-foot lot that is walking distance from the beach.” The cost: $3,500 a year. The location: Beautiful Westerly, Rhode Island. “I couldn’t rent a place in the area for a week for that amount,” says Luanne. You just have to get past the idea that you’re living the “country club” life in, well, a trailer park of sorts.

That’s not a huge leap for growing numbers of people when the parks are in attractive locations like Westerly and the homes are nicely designed and luxuriously finished. Many of the park models are custom built by outfits such as Cavco, and can be designed to “look like English country cottages, log cabins and even Modernist glass houses.” So don’t throw stones (sorry). Kristine and Peter F. Kilmartin tricked out their park model with “hardwood floors, track lighting, two sliding glass doors, a bay window seating area and a large kitchen with an island and stools. The unit also has surround-sound speakers inside and outside, where there is a deck and a patio.”

Typically, a skirt hides the wheels. The maximum size is 400 square feet, but you can add another 400 as a screened-in porch if you’d like. The Recreational Park Trailer Industry Association says sales of park models are up “46 percent … since 1997″ and that “10,100 were sold last year.” The trend even has its own magazine, Park Model Living, “which highlights trends and reviews resorts, communities and developments that sell or lease lots to park model owners … The number of park model communities is growing … particularly in areas that are attractive for vacation or retirement homes, like Maine, Rhode Island, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina and Texas.” ~ Tim Manners, editor/i>