Go inside a tiny-home village in Aspen providing affordable housing to seasonal workers. Here's what it's like to live there.
- In Colorado's Aspen-Basalt Campground, there's a tiny-home village where 115 people live.
- Village residents share one thing in common — they're all employees of Aspen Snowmass.
Aspen, Colorado, is frequented by A-listers and billionaires. But the service workers who keep the town running often can't afford to live there.
Each winter and summer, hundreds of seasonal workers arrive in Aspen to operate the town's ski lifts, staff hotels, and wait tables. But many don't make enough money to afford the cost of living in the wealthy ski town.
Between billionaire residents able to pay millions on homes and visitors willing to shell out a pretty penny for short-term rentals, there are few housing options left for the town's lower-wage workers, The Aspen Times reports.
And in a town where the average home costs $2.7 million on Zillow, a minimum wage of $20 for hourly workers at Aspen Snowmass, the county's largest employer and the name behind four ski areas, doesn't cut it.
"[Housing] is a scarce resource," Philip Jeffreys, a planning and development project manager for Aspen Snowmass, told Insider.
One way that employers like Aspen Snowmass entice seasonal workers is by offering housing below market value, according to its website.
However, demand exceeds supply.
"Even though we have over 1,000 beds in our portfolio, that's only about a quarter of our workforce," Jeffreys said.
In an effort to brainstorm alternative housing solutions, Jeffreys and his team at Aspen Snowmass turned a campground into a tiny-house village.
In 2016, Aspen Snowmass piloted a tiny-house village to address housing needs.
In 2016, Aspen Snowmass decided to make use of a 6.6-acre campground it purchased in 2008, according to The Aspen Times.
Previously, there were discussions of rezoning the land for an apartment complex, but that would be timely and expensive, Jeffreys said.
Instead, Jeffreys' team landed on tiny homes and purchased six tiny houses for $100,000 each.
The company deemed the pilot program a success, and today there are 40 homes on the campground.
Jeffreys said the tiny homes had advantages over apartments from multiple standpoints. The price of the tiny homes was cheaper than building and rezoning, plus, the workers liked living in them.
So in 2017, the company purchased another 34 homes. Together, the 40 tiny homes now house 115 employees each winter season.
About a 30-minute drive down Colorado Highway 82 is the tiny-house village.
With scarce affordable housing, workers (and the companies offering affordable housing) are pushed farther and farther from the heart of Aspen.
Aspen Snowmass' campground located in Basalt, Colorado, is a 30-minute car ride or a 45-minute bus ride to downtown Aspen.
It's a middle-ground compared to the other housing options Aspen Snowmass offers its employees, which range from housing options located within walking distance to its resorts, as well as apartment complexes about an hour away from workers' jobs, according to the company's website.
A dated Christmas-colored sign towers over the 6.6-acre lot indicating the former RV park. A gravel path leads to the village, where there's a main office and tiny homes spread across the property.
What was once a campground for a collection of RVs ranging in size, shape, and color is now a cookie-cutter tiny-house village.
The nearly identical houses are technically RVs since they sit on wheels, have license plates, and use traditional RV hookups for utilities.
At the front of the property is a row of six tiny homes with orange, cobalt, and maroon trims.
At the front of the Aspen-Basalt Campground are the six original tiny homes from the pilot program.
These first six homes are 500 square feet and sleep two people.
When Aspen Snowmass hired Sprout Tiny Homes to build the second group of tiny homes, they increased the size to 600 square feet to fit an additional bedroom, Jeffreys said.
Behind the first six are 34 more tiny homes — the second iteration of the program.
Before building the second set of tiny homes, Jeffreys said the ski company surveyed its seasonal workers. There were two things they wanted: privacy and affordability.
According to Jeffreys, all the tiny homes meet those demands. The bedrooms are each separate and have their own door, and the rent on these larger units is more affordable compared to its apartment rates.
In the 600-square-feet tiny homes, there are three bedrooms: two lofts and a ground-level room.
Inside the 600-square-foot tiny homes are three bedrooms, a living space, kitchen, full bathroom, and half bathroom.
The design features two lofted bedrooms with a mattress and built-in storage. The main bedroom has enough space for a bed frame and a small dresser.
Depending on the type of tiny house and room size, rent ranges between $470 and $600, Jeffreys said.
The lofted bedrooms cost less than the ground-level bedroom due to their smaller size, Jeffreys told Insider.
The 600-square-feet homes don't have space for laundry or large closets, so Aspen Snowmass added storage units and coin laundry machines to the property.
Utilities are covered in their rent but residents are responsible for their internet bills.
Blake Sims, a season ski-lift operator for Aspen Snowmass, moved into one of the ground-level bedrooms this winter. So far, he told Insider that he has no regrets about his choice.
When Blake Sims was hired this winter at Aspen Snowmass, he told Insider that he was given four options for housing.
He could choose between two shared apartments, a room in a tiny house, or whatever housing he could find for himself. The last wasn't viable, "unless I wanted to live out of my car," he said.
Ultimately, Sims chose the tiny house. He said he pays $550 a month — between $100 and $200 less than the shared apartments — for the private room.
"I honestly think I got the best deal. There's privacy in the rooms, and I know some others don't have that," Sims said, referring to some of his coworker's living situations.
Sims said privacy and outdoor space are major benefits of his tiny home. But the unexpected bonus was the community he's built while living in the tiny house.
He said he's been shocked by the community that's formed inside the tiny-house village.
Earlier this winter, Sims said a group of his neighbors-turned-friends spent an afternoon building a terrain park to practice skiing and snowboarding.
"I made some really good friends," he said. "The community is awesome here."
For weeks, Sims and a group gathered in the tiny village's communal room to host "tiny town turn-up Tuesdays."
Before the Omicron COVID-19 surge, residents at the tiny-house village initiated a weekly BYOB event with board games, puzzles, and music.
In the summer, Melody Kappeli, the property's community manager, said the backyard becomes a bustling area.
After winter, the tiny-home village remains open for workers who stay on for the summer season.
Melody Kappeli, the property's community manager, told Insider that's when the outdoor furniture comes out of storage and barbecues, games, and BYOB events take place in the outdoor space.
There are fewer workers during this period, but it's still a popular time for tourism in Aspen. So, some seasonal workers come back to work jobs in hotels and restaurants, and any tiny homes that aren't leased to Aspen Snowmass workers will be rented out to the public, Jeffreys said.
One area of the campground still caters to RVs, but Jeffreys said there are plans to add about 25 more tiny homes.
Jeffreys said there were plans to add at least 25 larger tiny homes to the village that would have space for four people.
When those tiny homes arrive, it will nearly double the village's current occupancy.
The village hasn't solved Aspen Snowmass' challenge of affordable housing, but Jeffreys said they're working to be part of the solution.
Aspen Snowmass continues to face affordable housing shortages for its workers.
This season, the company rented out a hotel in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, for additional housing, The Aspen Times reported.
The village hasn't solved Aspen's challenge of affordable housing, but Jeffreys hopes by offering it to employees that they're part of the solution.
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