Where we started
The Tiny House
We were paying over $30,000 a year in rent in the Bay Area. We knew there had to be a better way -- not a downgrade, but an upgrade.
So we designed and built a 300-square-foot tiny house on wheels in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Full kitchen, walk-in closet, dishwasher, and room for a growing family. We named it Escher, after our daughter.
We documented everything and started thisxlife. The story resonated -- Dwell, Domino, Apartment Therapy, Curbed, Cup of Jo, Business Insider, DIY Network and over 20 other publications featured our home. We traveled in a Sprinter van, rented the tiny house on Airbnb, and built a community around intentional living.
Then, in 2020, the Northern California wildfires took everything. Our tiny house was reduced to ashes.
Asheville Forest Baths
We'd done it before. We knew we could do it again -- bigger this time.
We moved across the country to Fairview, North Carolina, just outside Asheville, and started building from the ground up. Three handcrafted cottages in the woods, each with cedar soaking tubs. A treehouse sauna pavilion. The kind of detail that comes from doing every part of the work yourself.
1,400+ reservations. 5.0 rating. Every guest gets a complimentary private sauna session. We designed every space, built every system, and operate every piece of it.
Dark City Solarium & Jungle Bird Manor
Then we found a property in Black Mountain and built the Dark City Solarium -- a sun-drenched retreat minutes from downtown, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a cedar hot tub. Then we restored a 1920s house there and opened it as Jungle Bird Manor, with its own dry barrel sauna, cedar hot tub, and board game room.
Today we run five properties, consult on construction and rental projects, build websites and automation for local businesses, and keep designing the life we want to live.
That's thisxlife.
