Twenty-six modular cottages, built in a shop, then trucked to campus and craned onto permanent foundations for use as student housing.
Photos courtesy of Wind River Built. They posted a look back at the install this week — from facility to jobsite — and I wanted to sit with it for a minute.
Southern Mountain Cottages
Southern Adventist University needed more housing as enrollment climbed. The answer was Southern Mountain Cottages: 26 modular homes on the northeast edge of White Oak Mountain, off Colcord Drive in Collegedale, nestled into the woods rather than dropped onto a parking lot.
Each cottage is about 600 square feet and houses four students. Inside: loft-style beds with study areas, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living area, and laundry. Southern described them as high-quality modular homes with finishes you’d find in a high-end house — rustic and modern at the same time. They were built for more independent upperclassmen who still wanted to stay on campus.
Not a Tiny House on Wheels
This is the part I keep coming back to. These are not THOWs. They’re not on wheels or a metal frame. Wind River Built constructed them in Cleveland, Tennessee — just up the road from campus — using traditional dimensional lumber. Then they hauled them by truck and set them with a crane onto permanent foundations.
That shop-to-site path is the whole story in those photos. One cottage hangs from the straps, floor joists showing, while another already sits finished in the trees. Crews guide the next one down onto the block wall. It looks like tiny-house delivery day, except the destination is a campus neighborhood instead of a backyard.
Why This Feels Small-House Adjacent
Wind River is the Cleveland / Chattanooga shop a lot of us already know from tiny homes and park models — Travis Pyke’s crew. In 2024 they were leaning hard into modular: same small-space thinking, but for campuses, hospitality, and what Pyke calls the “missing middle.” The Southern contract was one of their first two big modular jobs, and by that fall the cottages had been delivered.
Justin Moore, Southern’s associate vice president for business operations, said they needed housing quickly, and that building off-site while the campus did site work was the match. Four students in 600 square feet sounds tight until you hear how they split the bathroom — toilet, shower, and vanity as separate spaces — so more than one person can get ready at once. A junior who lives there, Colin, put it simply: it feels like a neighborhood, not a dorm.
Watch the Case Study
Wind River later put out a case study walking through the design, the build, and what it’s like to live in the finished cottages.
Tiny House Magazine Issue #164 is also out, and Wind River Homes is one of the features — a different story from these campus cottages.
Highlights
- 26 modular cottages for Southern Adventist University (Southern Mountain Cottages)
- About 600 sq ft each; four students per cottage
- Loft-style beds with study areas, bathroom, kitchen, living area, and laundry
- Built in Cleveland, TN by Wind River Built; trucked to campus; craned onto permanent foundations
- Traditional dimensional lumber — not on wheels, not a THOW
- Northeast edge of White Oak Mountain, off Colcord Drive, Collegedale, Tennessee
More from Southern Adventist University and Construction In Focus.
Explore More
Subscribe to our Newsletters:
Join the Tiny House Newsletter => https://tinyhousetalk.com/tinyhousenewsletter
Join The Small House Newsletter => https://tinyhousetalk.com/small-house-newsletter/
Join Our Tiny Houses For Sale Newsletter => http://tinyhousetalk.com/tiny-houses-for-sale-newsletter
This post may contain affiliate links and/or sponsored content.
Alex
Latest posts by Alex (see all)
- 26 Modular Student Cottages, Shop-Built and Craned Onto a Tennessee Campus - August 23, 2026
- Tiny House Magazine Issue #164: Wind River Homes, Slowing Down, and What’s Next After Tiny - August 23, 2026
- After the Camino and a Workplace Injury, She Sold Her Sydney Studio and Built Mortgage-Free on Family Land - August 23, 2026
