It took Wind River Custom Homes a decade to build 100 small, modular homes at their first location — a 11,000-square-foot facility in Apison, Tennessee.
Now, a decade later, the company has moved into a new, 100,000-square-foot plant in Cleveland, Tennessee, and CEO Travis Pyke is eager to surpass their previous achievements. He expects the company will build at least that many homes, if not more, by the end of their first year at the new location.
“At Apison, we could build three homes indoors at a time,” says Pyke, adding that the upgrade was financed by a Texas-based investment group. “Now we have two production lines and 18 or 19 homes indoors. We’ve gone from 45 employees to 105.”
It’s likely that Pyke, who is also chief design officer, feels just as comfortable on the production floor as he does in his office. The Chattanooga-area native learned carpentry from his grandfather, and his family built their own home when he was in the seventh grade. Pyke built his first home when he was a student at Chattanooga State and about to get married.
“It was 192 square feet,” he says. “I bought a trailer on Craigslist. I was taking classes and worked full-time, so I built it out evenings and weekends. Did everything myself, and it took about a year.
“… The goal was to save money and get debt-free and after 18 months, we were. It’s not for everybody, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
While studying at Chattanooga State, Pyke read a magazine article about the “tiny home movement.” Inspired by the article, he bought his first trailer and, in the fall of 2014, launched Wind River with friends Caleb Knowles, the company’s chief engineering officer, and Jeremy Weaver, who played a crucial role in Wind River’s early years before moving on.
Until recently, Pyke says, most of Wind River’s business had been “one-off, custom builds.” But that changed with the company’s expansion.
“We’re building now for a lot of developers,” he says, adding that the vast majority of Wind River’s 2024 business will come from just two contracts — one with a 20-acre resort near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and another for campus housing at Southern Adventist University in nearby Collegedale.
“Other universities are kind of hearing about that,” he says. “It could wind up being a new target market for us.”
Photo by Olivia Ross / A finished home from Wind River Custom Homes ready for delivery.Pyke says that in the longer term, Wind River will look to build single-family housing for what he calls the “missing middle.”
“Something that’s not referred to as ‘affordable housing’, but it’s also not expensive new construction, which averages about $400,000,” he says. “We feel there’s a huge interest for homes of 900 to 1,400 square feet.”
But Pyke says the fact that Wind River builds small doesn’t mean it builds on the cheap. He says Wind River homes range from $250 to $400 per square foot, while the median price per square foot for Chattanooga-area site-built homes is $225.
“We put out a quality product made of premium materials,” he says. “Think about it — we’re building a home that’s getting towed into a 60-mile-per-hour headwind. These are craftsmen-built, modular homes craned onto foundations and permanently attached, same as a site-build home.”
Pyke says it’s hard to slow down, especially since Wind River’s expansion, but occasionally thinks back on how it all started — with one tiny trailer.
“I wanted to work for myself,” he says. “I wanted to be my own boss, and I loved building.
“Then I got to work with a group of friends building homes. Over the last 10 years, we’ve build a solid reputation. That’s what opened the door to our growth.”
Wind River Custom Homes, is at 970 Old Chattanooga Pike in Cleveland, Tennessee, about 40 minutes from downtown Chattanooga.
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