If you live in Louisiana or Mississippi, it won't be long before you can jump in the car, drive down to neighborhood Lowe's and buy a new home for a cool $25,000 to $50,000.

Home improvement warehouse retailer Lowe's Companies Inc. has agreed to become the first and exclusive distributor of building material packages as well as blueprints for the little house that could, the Katrina Cottage , named for the home-wrecking hurricane that prompted its creation.

First introduced at the International Builders Show in Orlando, FL, early last year, the Katrina Cottage gained celebrity status after the hurricane of the same name roared ashore in the Gulf Coast later that year.

Designed by New York architect Marianne Cusato of Cusato Cottages, LLC, the Katrina Cottage prototype was presented as a more aesthetically appealing and durable form of housing than those grim-looking FEMA trailers that popped up throughout the Gulf Coast region after the hurricane.

Awarded the New Urban Guild's Seal of Approval, the home already has evolved through several construction prototypes in the Gulf Coast region. It's been on-site constructed, panelized (factory made parts assembled on site) and factory-built and trucked complete to a site. It's also considered the new darling of the park trailer set, small vacation accommodations that look like playhouses for adults.

Anything but child's play, the homes are designed to withstand heavy rain and winds up to 140 miles per hour, meet most hurricane codes and the International Building Code. Materials include rot- and termite-resistant siding, durable 25-year warranted metal roofing, moisture- and mold-resistant drywall, framing, insulation, fixtures, electrical, plumbing and even appliances.

By November, Lowe's version, costing $45 to $55 a square foot -- $25,000 to $50,000 -- will come in four floor plans ranging in size from 544 square feet (about the size of a roomy studio apartment or small one-bedroom apartment) to 936 square feet (about the size of a roomy one-bedroom apartment or two-bedroom unit with smaller bedrooms).

The homes can remain as built or expanded to 1,200 square feet, with a limited number of additional designs available for an expansion to 1,340 square feet coming later.

"What makes the Katrina Cottage so appealing is that it's a true solution, whether the cottage remains the same or grows structurally with the home owner as time and funds allow,” said Larry D. Stone, senior executive vice president of merchandising and marketing at Lowe’s.

The deal hearkens back to Sear's popular mail order "kit homes" program, officially called "Modern Homes," a catalogue-based program that delivered 100,000 home building kits to empty lots from 1908–1940.

Lowe’s says its product is a "materials package" rather than a kit. Rather than shipping everything at once, say in boxes or pallets on a flat bed, Lowe's will phase the shipments to include lumber and hardware in one shipment, lighting, plumbing and other fixtures in another, flooring and appliances in still another and so on. Lowe's is also selling blueprints of the cottages for those who want to acquire their own materials.

The material packages will ultimately include all materials necessary to build the cottage from the foundation plate up; studs, insulation, fixtures, electrical, plumbing and appliances. The home owner will have to supply a foundation; a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system and, of course, their own furnishings. Material packages will require a professional contractor or skilled do-it-yourselfer to assemble. The home is designed to be assembled in six to eight weeks.

If the cottages move off the shelf fast enough in the first 30 stores, Lowe's plans to offer the homes at all of it's nearly 1,300 big box outlets nationwide.

Lowe's also plans to offer Katrina Cottage blueprints in all its stores, regardless of where the materials packages are sold.

Published: October 26, 2006

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.