In Wiscasset, Maine, luxury home builder Knickerbocker Group is shifting to modular to address Maine’s housing crisis. The builder has set up shop in a warehouse to begin building its small, modular ‘prefab pods,’ each with a three- to four-week completion time.
“We want to build small homes,” Danielle Betts, president of Knickerbocker Group, said.
The Wiscasset warehouse has been transformed into a giant construction shop, where the company plans to build multiple houses at the same time, all under cover, out of the weather, and with virtually all the work done by the in-house crew—no subcontractors.
Project manager Bill Burge said the new system is designed for maximum efficiency to lower costs.
“They will have a cut list and they will pre-cut everything on that side of the shop and put it in a cart and wheel it over and be assembled here,” Burge said, gesturing to the two halves of the large warehouse space.
