Downtown Las Vegas’s Tiny Homes Neighborhood

Can you imagine yourself living in a 200 square foot home? How about 160 square feet? Today the average home size is 2,600 square feet and growing. But, a few people started to ask themselves, “Why do I need all this empty space?” Houses are hundreds of thousands of dollars and mortgages are 30 year chains and shackles that leave you planted in one city for years with a hefty monthly house payment. Many people buy homes with more rooms than they need, paying for a house (and heating and cooling) that perhaps they only use a third of.

Then, the tiny house craze started.

People willing to live in homes as small as 100 square feet fit their lives into a tiny cabin-esque room with a lofted bed and minimal kitchen and bathroom. A tiny home can be built for as little as $15,000 to $30,000 dollars. If you plan well, you can pay it off within a handful of years. Then, freedom. No more house payment, no more excess. Your budget opens up to traveling, retirement or whatever you want.  

In the last few years, the tiny house movement has made a niche in Downtown Las Vegas, with Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, living in a small Airstream trailer himself. With a few friends and acquaintances, Hsieh started the Airstream Living Experiment. A fenced and private community, Airstreams and Tumbleweed Tiny Homes sit in a cozy neighborhood in downtown, a few blocks east of the Downtown Container Park. They share amenities laundry, a community pantry and outdoor hangout space with firepits and a blow-up projection screen for showing movies. Hsieh says, “For me, experiences are more meaningful than stuff. I have way more experiences here.” Their focus is essentially more experiences, less stuff.

“The primary asset that comes with a small house is freedom. The world gets a lot bigger when you’re living small. I can afford to do a lot more things now in terms of cash and time. The whole world is now my living room,” said Jay Schaefer, founder of Tumbleweed Tiny House Co., which supplied the tiny houses in Downtown Las Vegas.

At the Gold Spike Hotel, a tiny house is on display for visitors to explore amenities and functions that come with living small. Even better, Clark County in Las Vegas treats tiny homes on trailers like RV’s meaning you aren’t required to pay housing taxes.

If you are interested in the tiny house movement in Las Vegas, come stay at the Oasis at Gold Spike. You’ll be mere steps away from the Gold Spike tiny house, and a few blocks away from the Airstream Living neighborhood. Oasis at Gold Spike’s hotel near Fremont Street is near all the action and innovation of Downtown Las Vegas. You don’t want to miss what we’re doing down here.