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Randy Jones- From Nothing to Success With a Tiny House

I’ve found myself having put on a lot of years and can’t recall a time when it was more difficult for young folks to find a starter home and begin building a credit rating.

Smaller town homes are picked up as soon as they hit the market while with inflation, higher interest rates, higher material charges and labor costs, the newer homes are often out of their price range.

Young folks are too often left with renting an apartment or buying a factory built home, many of which are well built.

Another option for young folks, or for older folks wanting to downsize, is to consider a tiny house.

Randy Jones is originally from Michigan and graduated from Eastern Michigan University as an industrial arts teacher.

Drawn back to Blount County in his ancestral state of Tennessee, he taught industrial arts at Lafollette and Vine Middle Schools for 3 years, while doing construction work on the side.

Borrowing $30,000 from the Teachers’ Credit Union, he built a 3,000 square foot house by himself while living in a nearby shack.

Five years later he would sell the house for $160,000.

With his profit, Randy bought 160 acres of land at Walden’s Creek in Sevier County and turned it into a multi-million dollar resort in less than 10 years. in 1999 began building log cabins.

By 2008 he had finished 73 homes.

He told that with the crash of 2008 he lost everything and was forced to start over by living in a friend’s camper on a friend’s property.

I recently visited with Randy, his partner in business, Morristown nativeAmanda Hayes, and sales representative Tim Lowe at their thriving and packed tiny house facility on Industrial Road in Newport.

There Randy would tell me the story of how hard work, determination and a “don’t give up” philosophy can help other find success.

“Amanda and I sold all our tools and I took on remodeling jobs for less than others were charging and traveled all over the state just trying to keep alive,” he told. “Amanda told me that I could build anything with one hand behind my back, and got me interested in little houses. In the first three weeks, and by using every piece of material I could find, I built a Hobbit House on skids with $15k in materials. A man called me from Nashville and offered me $30k for the house.

“I approached Tim Oakes of Oakes Salvage and made a deal that if I cleaned up his lot that I could keep any usable materials. I hauled off the materials and could only use 30% of what I hauled off, but that was enough to build an 8’ by 16’ tiny home on a buddy’s used trailer. We sold that house on the internet and got 10 orders that weekend. I built a couple of them by myself, then called my buddy Tom Florkowski to help me.

“We built a small shanty-shed to build in, and in a year and a half moved to a 6,000 square foot facility at the old Enka factory.

“Amanda had told me that we were creating a small empire for affordable housing. Our chemistry on our daily YouTube show has captured the attention of Hollywood producers and the possibility of a reality show is in the works.

“We then found some land in Cocke County and have been here since 2018”, he continued. “We love Cocke County and have 10 guys who work here that are exceptional employees. What they didn’t know when they came here, we taught them and it doesn’t seem like they want to leave.

“We can build 6 or 8 homes at a time on an assembly line process. We take a trailer and blueprint design and build either a basic or a custom home. They’re built like a regular home and it’s just like living in a house. We’ve built about 2,000 homes in the last 9 years.”

After being given a tour of several of Randy’s houses, I was very impressed with the houses and noticed such things as standard steps leading to sleeping or storage lofts, and that the bathrooms had either 32, 36, or 38 inch independent showers along with separate toilets and sinks.

The homes come wired with a small stove, sink and room for a small refrigerator, and often a separate space for a washer/dryer unit.

The homes are insulated all around with the rooms all painted and ready for a new owner to move into. Randy has even designed an “Incredibox,” which is a 8’ by 16’ spare room which can quickly be attached to a house to provide an extra bedroom or office space.

Randy had the foresight to see that potential homeowners would have particular tastes and designed the homes with pleasing appearances. He also added different models to meet differing needs. The models include the Lexington, the Cottage, the Woody, the Lexington, the Charleston, and the Birmingham along with homes designed by the customers. Prices for his models range from $20,000 to $105,000.

Randy has also come up with the solution for home buyers who don’t have the land to place their new home and has started communities where the owners can lease homesites at a very reasonable price.

His first community, now filled, is called The Forest, where some homeowners have build decks around their personally landscaped homes.

The neighbors that I spoke with seemed well pleased and one lady intends to buy another home and rent out her present dwelling.

A second community is called The Beach and is marked by around 40 mature palm trees that have been hauled in and planted.

Other land has been purchased and The Prarie, The Grove, The Mountain, and Buffalo Creek communities are in the making nearby. With an ambition to have affordable communities coast to coast, he has also bought land in Nevada and California. The American spirit of hard work, skills, and ambition has paid off for Randy Jones.