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Amish-made houses are a modern trend
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4524378.html ^ | Feb. 3, 2007 | By PHILIP RUCKER

Posted on 02/15/2007 9:08:25 PM PST by Dan Evans

When Joyce Greenfield decided to build a house in the southern Maryland town of Chaptico, she knew she wanted a single-story rambler with at least three bedrooms and fancy bathrooms. At 49 and inching toward retirement, she also needed something affordable — a modular home.

She turned to a community not widely known for home-building: the Amish.

One of a kind Relatives recommended an Amish man in St. Mary's County, John Hertzler. She drove out to his farm in Mechanicsville — he has no phone, being Amish — and described what she wanted. She was thrilled with the price he quoted, $90,000, but was stunned to hear this:

The waiting list was two years long. Even though the houses take only five weeks to build.

Hertzler's family business is thought to be the region's only Amish modular-home outfit — and it has been booming. With no advertising, not even a listing in the phone book, Hertzler Modular Homes has cultivated a following among people looking for a customized and less expensive alternative to the cookie-cutter models that dominate residential developments.

Hertzler can build only one house at a time in his warehouse, and he has been producing at maximum capacity, about 10 to 12 a year. Asked why his houses are so popular, Hertzler was modest, as is expected by the Amish community.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm sure it probably is word of mouth."

Hertzler's business is an example of a recent shift in America's Amish. As farming becomes more expensive, Amish families are turning to making things and selling them to the general public.

Small-business growth "In the last 15 years, there's been quite a rapid development of small businesses, micro-enterprises in the Amish community owned and operated by Amish people," said Donald Kraybill, a leading scholar of the Amish and a professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, who wrote the 2004 book Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits.

About 2,000 Amish and Mennonite people live in southern Maryland, to which their ancestors migrated from Pennsylvania in the 1940s. Several of the families make furniture, sew quilts, and build barns and sheds for sale.

Hertzler's business is tucked away among the farms of Mechanicsville, the heart of the region's Amish population, where horses draw buggies slowly along country roads. Down a dirt and gravel driveway off a two-lane highway sits Hertzler's warehouse, where he and a half-dozen other bearded Amish workmen labor in suspenders and straw hats.

Using 'Amish electricity' They measure and saw, hammer and trim. Since the Amish do not believe in using electricity or many other modern conveniences, they power tools using what Kraybill calls "Amish electricity." A diesel engine pumps compressed air through hoses to power the tools. The Amish hire electricians to wire the homes.

A typical 1,500-square-foot home is constructed in two long units, which are less than 14 feet wide so they can be transported on roads.

Insulation, doors, carpets and cabinets are all added in the warehouse.

A separate contractor lays a foundation on the home site, and Hertzler hires a crew to truck the home to the property. In one day, Hertzler and his workers put the house together and build the roof.

"As far as I know, they have held up well," Hertzler said.

After about a year of checking in with Hertzler, Greenfield made it to the top of the waiting list in late November.

One recent afternoon, Hertzler gave a visitor a tour of Greenfield's nearly finished home. Planks, carpet scraps and linoleum sheets were scattered across the warehouse floor.

Hertzler buys many of his products and appliances from such mainstream vendors as Lowe's. Because Hertzler doesn't have a telephone, two Lowe's saleswomen drove to his warehouse that afternoon to discuss a pending order.

Hertzler's home-building operation is so low-profile that Lowe's saleswoman Penny Fleming said she "didn't really know that they were even really here" before she started taking Hertzler's orders.

$50 a square foot

In 2001, Hertzler took over the company from his father, John Sr., who started it about a quarter-century ago. The elder Hertzler, 67, still lives next door in a block farmhouse he built years ago. He and his wife raised their six children there.

The elder Hertzler sold his first modular home for $20,000, or about $17 a square foot. "Young couples coming in with a baby in their arms," John Sr. said. "Those were my favorite customers."

Since then, John Sr. estimates, the company has built 330 homes. Today, they sell for about $50 per square foot.

Greenfield, who sealed her deal with a handshake, said commercial modular home vendors offer similarly sized homes for two or three times the price.

The Amish can afford to sell at lower prices for several reasons, Kraybill said: They are exempt from paying Social Security taxes because they have waived the right to receive benefits; many family members work for the business and have a strong work ethic; and the way they operate helps keep costs low. There are no computers or air conditioning, he said.

"They don't have bells and whistles in the shops," Kraybill said. "They don't have air conditioning; they don't have computers; they don't have red carpets. It's just bare-bones."

Once Greenfield made it to the top of the waiting list, she met with Hertzler to design the house. She ordered the largest he would build, 1,680 square feet, with cream vinyl siding and burgundy shutters.

To seal the deal, they shook hands. Greenfield said she was not asked to sign a contract or to put any money down. Hertzler wrote her name and contact information on an unpainted door frame.

Greenfield said she drove to Hertzler's warehouse to check in once a week until construction was finished. By mid-January, Hertzler delivered her home. A yellow crane lowered the two units like coffins into the foundation. Hertzler and his crew assembled a high-pitched roof.

And Greenfield still hadn't paid a dime, although she intended to pay in full once the construction was finished. "I guess they do it in good faith," she reasoned.

Benjamin Beale, a University of Maryland extension agent who works with the Amish in St. Mary's, said transactions based on trust are common.

"There certainly is a sense of doing business the old-fashioned way, on a handshake and a trust in the agreement," Beale said. "But certainly in the general public that's unheard of, isn't it? You go to buy a house nowadays and you go into settlement to sign 60 papers."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: amish
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To: Dan Evans

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/31/AR2007013101894.html
Another story


21 posted on 02/15/2007 9:40:32 PM PST by gocats
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To: Dan Evans
A diesel engine pumps compressed air through hoses to power the tools. The Amish hire electricians to wire the homes.

At the point you're using this, just give up the whole non-technology non-sense.

22 posted on 02/15/2007 9:43:11 PM PST by aynrandfreak (Who would turn out better if we split into two separate countries based on the '04 Presidential Map?)
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To: aynrandfreak

Yea...I mean, diesel engines are allowed?!!

And air-powered tools? I guess the 5-axis CNC milled turbine inside them isn't technology...
Lol!


23 posted on 02/15/2007 9:49:55 PM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: Ramius
I just bought a dining room set of furniture from an Amish craftsman.

Is there a catalog of their furniture available? I guess it would be foolish to think there is one on the net.

24 posted on 02/15/2007 9:50:39 PM PST by cpdiii (Pharmacist, Pilot, Geologist, Oil Field Trash and proud of it.)
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To: cpdiii

http://www.amish-furniture-home.com/


25 posted on 02/15/2007 9:53:35 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman (Fatigue makes cowards of us all.)
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To: Pure Country

They are infamous for awful puppy mills too. No group of people is exclusively good or exclusively bad.


26 posted on 02/15/2007 9:53:57 PM PST by Fairview
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To: Dan Evans
They are exempt from paying Social Security taxes because they have waived the right to receive benefits

Hey! Nobody ever gave me that option. :(

27 posted on 02/15/2007 10:00:28 PM PST by abigailsmybaby
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To: aynrandfreak
At the point you're using this, just give up the whole non-technology non-sense.

The Amish aren't against technology, they are against technology that they believe will change them in bad ways. About 100 years ago most Amish farmhouses had telephones. They were concerned with the negative effects it was having so they were banned.

As I understand it, the main objection to electricity is the temptation of television, a terrific time-waster that threatens their workaholic culture.

An Amish man was asked why they will use propane but not electricty. He replied, "Have you ever seen a TV set that runs on propane?"

28 posted on 02/15/2007 10:04:41 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: dman4384

": They are exempt from paying Social Security taxes because they have waived the right to receive benefits"

"Hey..how'd they get that deal? Sign me up!"

Same here! Just point the way!


29 posted on 02/15/2007 10:04:50 PM PST by KantianBurke
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To: aynrandfreak

They do use internal combustion engines, but they don't get electric service hooked up because it constitutes "being yoked to an unbeliever." There are various levels of strictness among Amish and Mennonite groups.

Their radical Christianity is similar to Calvinists like the Puritans, who have had a great influence on American history.


30 posted on 02/15/2007 10:13:16 PM PST by iowamark
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To: Dan Evans
Amish people are good Westerners.

They believe in labor and they work harder than most of us do.

However, there sure is a theological dispute here (but no odium theologicum, I hope).

Followers of any Amish concept of the "Ordnung" do not recognize the common, yet implicit, Christian notion that, in this world, Christian endeavor WORKS IN "DISTINCT", LARGE SCALE STAGES OF ECONOMICAL UPHEAVAL.

For instance;

Most Christians welcome the digital revolution and view certain, unwanted spin off effects entailing it (like Internet frauds), as acceptable (because the Internet generally speaking is believed to be beneficial to sound human endeavor). Been there done that, now let's move on.

Amish people differ in this respect. Digitally based technology might be recognized as beneficial to mankind at large, but is simultaneously viewed as sinful because this technology also contains threats to their traditional faith and their notion of what a Christian community ought to be like.
31 posted on 02/15/2007 10:44:13 PM PST by WesternCulture
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To: Judith Anne
It is exquisitely done, very highest quality. Under $800. When she handed it to me after the transaction, she said, "May you and your family sleep in peace under this quilt for generations to come."

That's the kind of thing your remote descendants will take on Antiques Road Show three hundred years hence. It will be appraised at 34 zillion quatloos.

-ccm

32 posted on 02/15/2007 10:51:36 PM PST by ccmay (Too much Law; not enough Order.)
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To: july4thfreedomfoundation

Go ahead and lie if you like and tell the Gov,t. you're Amish. Some lies are moral when to tell the truth is more harmful.


33 posted on 02/16/2007 12:24:27 AM PST by johnmark7
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To: Dan Evans
God Bless them for doing honest, quality work that made America so great in the past. We still have many examples of greatness and many are still those who are humble before God. My boss is one of them.
34 posted on 02/16/2007 2:51:51 AM PST by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: Dan Evans

Yoder Dame

Home of the Fighting Amish


35 posted on 02/16/2007 3:09:34 AM PST by WhiteGuy (GOP Congress - 16,000 earmarks costing US $50 billion in 2006 - PAUL2008)
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To: Judith Anne

Sounds like the one I bought recently from an Amish builder, only mine was 12x24 and cost about $4500. I am very satisfied with the quality.


36 posted on 02/16/2007 3:21:52 AM PST by Graybeard58 (Remember and pray for SSgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
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To: Dan Evans
They are exempt from paying Social Security taxes because they have waived the right to receive benefits;

I hadn't heard of such an exemption. How does one apply for this?

37 posted on 02/16/2007 5:00:32 AM PST by snowsislander
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To: Dan Evans

There is much to admire about the Amish, but I don't in any respect hold them as peculiarly unique role models. I think their pacifism, the very thing that many point to as a virtue, is specifically un-Biblical and borders on irresponsible. But except for that, God bless them and I hope they can continue to live as simply as they wish, while others assume the responsiblity to keep them free.


38 posted on 02/16/2007 5:12:26 AM PST by Larry Lucido
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To: FLOutdoorsman; cpdiii

That looks like pretty much the same inventory as the place I went. The shop I went to is called "Amish Touch".

Here:

http://www.amishtouch.com/

The stuff is expensive. But after looking around in all the big box stores for furniture, and being unimpressed with the generally poor quality to be found... these guys were a breath of fresh air. It was really refreshing to find that somebody out there still makes really high quality stuff. The difference is not subtle.


39 posted on 02/16/2007 6:17:03 AM PST by Ramius ([sip])
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To: WesternCulture
Digitally based technology might be recognized as beneficial to mankind at large, but is simultaneously viewed as sinful because this technology also contains threats to their traditional faith and their notion of what a Christian community ought to be like.

The phrase "worldly" comes up a lot. The influence of the outside world on the culture is the threat they see. Not an unreasonable concern since we see it all the time affecting America. Even the Supreme Court is making noises about getting our laws in line with the rest of the world.

40 posted on 02/16/2007 7:11:12 AM PST by Dan Evans
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