Functional & radical

PERRYVILLE, Mo.

In the rolling hills northwest of Perryville, a woman with an idea has caught the imagination of people looking for a radical departure in home design.

Rocio Romero designs a line of modern kit homes, which she sells across the country. Romero herself lives in the base model, the LV Home.

Like many people with a plan that challenges the status quo, Rocio Romero thought at first that manufacturers would jump at the chance to market her moderately priced, moderately sized prefabricated residence. And like many before, she was turned away.

"They thought my business plan was off," Romero said. "They didn't believe it would work. My design was a shock."

So with trust in her own judgment, Romero lined up suppliers, hired a handful of workers and went to work. "It was all out of pocket," Romero said. "I just bet on myself."

She filed the papers to set up her company almost five years ago. Since then, Romero has gained national attention, including a glowing write-up in New Yorker magazine in October 2005. When the article appeared, sales totaled 25 kits for building the 1,150-square-foot home Romero calls the LV. The total now, she said, is about 125 kits.

"The L.V. is an exceptionally beautiful house," New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger wrote. "Other designers, such as Charlie Lazor and the firm Resolution: 4 Architecture, are building innovative prefabricated structures, but Romero's designs stand out for their clarity, simplicity, and grace. There is nothing funky about the L.V. Romero has hidden the gutters inside the structure and made the exterior walls higher than the slightly downward-slanting roof, so that when you look at her house all you see is a clean, pure box."

Romero, 36, was born in Chile and raised in San Diego. She was educated at the University of California at Berkeley, receiving a degree in environmental design, and received her master's degree in architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture. The school prides itself on educating innovative designers working on a human scale.

Romero is married to Cale Bradford, chief operations officer of Pyramid Home Health Services. They share the second LV home ever built on their 70-acre farm. The first was a design for her parents, who wanted an affordable, low-maintenance home to build as a vacation home in Laguna Verde, Chile.

"It was a good fit for me," Romero said. "I immediately knew that this was what I would do."

The interior of the LV home is as functional as the exterior is strikingly different. All the plumbing and utilities are located along one of the long sides of the 49-foot-by-25-foot home. Inside Romero's home, which doubles as a demonstration model, windows make up most of two walls, with sliding doors for easy egress and a positioning that lets the sun warm the home in winter.

The LV Home designed by Rocio Romero.

"It took several renditions to know what was superfluous and what needed to be included," Romero said. "That took several years."

Romero speaks with assurance about every aspect of her home, from the way her two-wall system hides the gutters and the roof and provides extra insulation, to the benefits of galvalum siding -- it weathers well and requires no painting -- or her decision to devote so much space to windows. "Natural lighting is better than artificial lighting," she said. "It is healthy for the mind and healthy for the body."

Romero's vision is to provide affordable, distinctive homes. The basic kit, priced at about $35,000, provides the wall system, one interior load wall, steel posts, a roof structure and exteriors. A contractor can usually erect the home and finish it out for $120 to $190 a square foot, depending on the location, she said.

There are larger versions, and a smaller studio-sized design, and combinations can create a large home.Romero said she believes her design will endure, that the simplicity of her idea will win acolytes. That, in turn, will multiply the orders, she said.

As for now, instead of being turned away, Romero said, she is being sought out. "I am constantly being published. People see an LV and inquire about it, and ask around. Now they are knocking at our door."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126