'Late to the party': Developers bring shipping container homes to Fishers, Indianapolis
In the Fishers Nickel Plate District south of 116th Street, developers have built dozens of modern homes on small lots where bungalows once stood.
The custom and semi-custom 3-story townhouses selling for nearly $1 million feature sleek materials, glass fronts and quirky design elements.
Just the sort of neighborhood, developer Joe Nixon said, that was primed for some inside-the-box thinking.
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Nixon is building Hamilton County’s first house made from shipping containers at 11405 Lantern Road in the NPD’s Village Center section. Seven stacked containers are being joined to construct a 3-story house with a second-floor deck on 1/18th of an acre.
A Fishers review panel approved the building last September after three months of suggested design changes. It will be used as an Airbnb.
Nixon said the neighborhood’s evolving aesthetic — described as “downtown sophistication” by another developer-— was the perfect place to try a home that forges a modern look from a steel box.
"After a while, you get tired of drywall and want to try something different and I thought this looks cool,” said Nixon, who has been involved in acquiring nearly 50 properties in the neighborhood. “I felt this area lends itself to something like this because there are a lot of unique architectural styles, materials, roof pitches and heights.”
'Late to the party'
The popularity of dwellings made from containers has grown around the country — and world — for a couple of decades. They have long been common in the military because of their portability and durability. The containers can be pre-fabricated, easily moved, and stacked. They were built to withstand trips across the ocean and are resistant to winds up to 120 mph.
“This has been going on in Europe since the 1980s and 1990s so we here in Indianapolis are almost late to the party,” said Mike Lewis, owner of Custom Container Builders in Indianapolis, which is building the Nickel Plate home.
Lewis, a conventional home builder, got into the container side in 2018, partly because of the rising price of lumber.
“We’d been doing stick frame housing but my business partner traveled the world and had seen these projects so we tried it,” he said.
Container homes can be cheaper and quicker to build, though Nixon said his was about the same price and construction time as a standard house. He plans to sell it for about $700,000.
Door spaces and window openings need to be cut, as well as interior walls in 40-by-8 feet containers. In the Fishers house, one of three trailers on the ground serves as the foundation for a deck above, which is cheaper than building a traditional wood deck, Nixon said.
The Nickel Plate Review Committee sent the proposal back for design tweaks a couple of times, which mostly included reducing the amount of exterior exposed steel and replacing it with wood accents.
Indianapolis container home grabs attention
Lewis said he has built or is building seven container projects — including an eight-unit townhouse project using 32 shipping containers on College Avenue in Indianapolis — with orders for about 15 more.
Custom Container’s first container home — and the first in Indianapolis — was built on Bellefontaine Street on the near north side for Drew Butterworth in 2020.
Butterworth said his intention was to rent the space as an Airbnb but once he got involved in the construction he and his wife decided they liked the idea of moving into it themselves. He kept upgrading and now has a balcony and pool with a sundeck built into a ground-floor trailer.
“The more money and passion we put into it the more we said we have to live there,” he said.
The house is three stories tall with four bedrooms and 3 ½ baths.
Building the home was challenging for tradesmen such as electricians because it was unconventional and Butterworth had to cycle through a few contractors to get the job done.
The walls are insulated with closed cell foam that is denser than standard insulation, making the house virtually soundproof, Butterworth said. The flooring is the original container flooring of 6-inch thick apitong wood.
“Being inside you’d never know it’s made of containers,” he said.
The house has become a local curiosity, and Butterworth often offers neighbors short tours.
“Everybody wants a look, even door the Door Dash guy,” he said.
Call the reporter at 317-444-6418.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Developers bring shipping container homes to Fishers, Indianapolis
