BC Business
These B.C. tiny home builders prove that good things come in small square footages
Tiny homes aren’t just a fad. Plus, getting creative with square footage could help with B.C.’s housing problem (building smaller homes in less space would work, right?). Here are six B.C. tiny home builders that are making living small feel large.
John Beck built full-size residential homes in Richmond for 30 years, but started seriously thinking about smaller spaces the way many of us did: by happening upon a tiny home reality TV show. “I got to thinking about the need for affordable housing for both the young and the old—it’s desperately needed,” he says. He launched Rolling Bear Tiny Homes in 2017. The company’s cost-efficient dwellings can be identified by their signature (and very charming) log siding.
You could say construction is part of the Kingma family foundation. “All of us have done nothing but build our whole life,” says Andrea Bravo (née Kingma) with a laugh. She and her brothers, Dan, Stephan and Luke Kingma, started Rover Tiny Homes in 2019 to give BCers with remote recreational properties an affordable housing option. The Chilliwack-based biz has built and delivered homes (all named after B.C. mountains and islands) throughout the province, and as far north as the Yukon.
Pam Robertson has made tiny homes a big part of her life: she’s the former president of Tiny Home Alliance Canada (now the Tinyhome Builders Association of Canada) and currently acts as the organization’s communications director. Plus, she founded Sunshine Tiny Homes in Port Mellon in 2018. The Sunshine Coast-based builder offers models that vary from permanent dwellings with full-height bedrooms to “bunkie” style spaces perfect for a home office or gaming room.
Vernon-based Summit Tiny Homes is nestled in the middle of a Venn diagram comparing small space designers and luxury home builders—it’s a niche that Oliver Stankiewitz thoughtfully carved out when he founded the company in 2017. Summit’s custom tiny homes incorporate technology like heated flooring and air conditioning as well as high-quality hardwoods and tiles: “Tiny homes see a lot of wear and tear,” says Stankiewitz, “and our materials make the longevity of the house much better.”
Seth Reidy built his first tiny house out of unused material left over from large construction job sites. Enormous homes were cropping up in Nelson, taking up a lot of square footage and generating a lot of waste. “I felt if that extreme was an option, there should be someone providing the opposite option,” says Reidy, who founded Nelson Tiny Houses in 2012. Instead of scaling up, the team is laser- focused on customization and sustainability, building only four to five projects each year.
Patrick and Jessica Whelan struggled to find the right local resources when constructing their own tiny home, so now their company Rewild Homes offers not only move-in-ready portable cabins but also partially completed shells: if clients want to install cabinets, appliances or even insulation and electrical themselves, they can choose to do so. “There’s a lot more to it than people think,” says Jessica—this Cobble Hill-based company, founded in 2014, gives customers the option to (safely) be their own builder.