This Prefab Builder Never Makes the Same Home Twice—and You Can See It in the Price
Welcome to Prefab Profiles, an ongoing series of interviews with people transforming how we build houses. From prefab tiny houses and modular cabin kits to entire homes ready to ship, their projects represent some of the best ideas in the industry. Do you know a prefab brand that should be on our radar? Get in touch!
In 2008, after couple Joel and Meelena Turkel graduated with masters’ degrees in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they set out on their own with a nascent idea: prefab properties that start with a curated questionnaire.
In the years since, Joel and Meelena established Turkel Design to make homes based on their answers. Prompts include everything from where someone wants to live to how they want to live. So far, the firm has completed more than 200 projects across the world, and their process has only become more refined. Here’s how Turkel Design makes residences that are specially attuned to to their owners.
Turkel Design built and outfitted this multigenerational home for Canadian clients. The process started with a detailed questionnaire, as it does for all the company’s projects, before homing in on the details.
Can you share a little about the most exciting project you've realized to date?
One project that we love is Mulmur Hills Farm, located in rural Ontario. The clients selected us to design a multigenerational vacation home for their growing family on a plot of farmland. Made of locally sourced wood, concrete, stone, and blackened steel accents, the home honors the site’s architectural heritage while enhancing the family’s modern lifestyle.
Turkel Design’s process combines the predictability of prefab with bespoke design that supports each homeowner’s particular lifestyle. In this case, that led to a cantilevered yoga and art studio with views in three directions, a large U-shaped custom kitchen island facing a rolling meadow, and bespoke custom cabinetry throughout: a bench with a hidden turntable, a deployable mixology station, a small cabinet at the entrance to store cell phones and keys, and more.
We also loved working on the Lake Muskoka Boathouse in Port Carling, Ontario. A simple, modern update of a traditional, utilitarian structure, the boathouse’s components were all fabricated off-site, thereby maximizing an already short building season and to ensure that the owners would not lose a summer to construction. This also allowed the components to be towed across the ice by snowmobile, avoiding the need for costly barging, undue site disturbance, and a lengthy winter build—an example of how we leverage the benefits of prefab to design for remote or otherwise challenging locations.
Turkel Design has worked with clients throughout the country and the world, covering 34 states and places like New Zealand and the Bahamas.
What qualities make your prefab stand apart from the rest?
While many prefab companies emphasize a low cost and speed of assembly as their primary benefits, Turkel Design leads with quality and architectural excellence. Every project follows a finely honed set of design principles and is executed with premium materials.
What makes us stand apart from other high-quality residential architects is that we use the precision of off-site prefabrication to bring predictability to the cost, timeline, and quality of each project. And secondly, we make premium architecture available to homeowners anywhere.
The cost for Turkel Design to fabricate a 2,110-square-foot home is about $1.7 million.
What does your base model cost and what does that pricing include?
We offer a library of design starting points, and we also design fully custom homes. While the cost of each project varies, the combined cost of fabricating one of our designs—and a local builder’s work to assemble and finish the home—starts at $1.7 million. Our design starting points range from 2,110 to 3,250 square feet, while many of our fully custom projects are 4,000 square feet or larger.
In addition to design services, we offer a "prefabricated building component" package for each home. This includes exterior and interior wall systems, roof and floor systems, interior and exterior doors, windows, cladding, decking, and custom built-in cabinetry and furniture.
Constructing this boathouse off-site allowed the company to prepare the home during colder months to launch it by summer.
Where are the prefabs currently available?
We can design for just about any building site anywhere. We have designed homes for 34 U.S. states, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel, New Zealand, and elsewhere.
Is your design currently pre-permitted in any U.S. municipalities?
No, because every Turkel Design home is a custom home.
Turkel Design works with each client individually to customize their homes, and the process typically takes two years to complete.
How long can a client expect the process to take after they put down a deposit?
Every project is different, but we typically work with clients who will be ready to move in within two years.
What aspects of an install do you manage?
We guide clients through every aspect of the permitting process, coordinating the various consultants and providing a comprehensive set of drawings and specifications needed to ensure a smooth approval. We have successfully worked in some of the most challenging regulatory environments within and outside of the United States, including Mill Valley, California; Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; Waiheke Island, New Zealand; and the Bahamas.
While a local general contractor oversees site prep, assembly, and finishing, we coordinate with them throughout to ensure correct installation of the finishes, fixtures, and furnishings that we selected with the client during the design and specification phase. Our assembly specialist is available to advise the general contractor on assembly of the component package. We prepare the hardline drawings that define the details of each home, along with those required by the general contractor and the installers, who assemble and finish out the home.
This Palm Springs home features a sliding glass door that opens the kitchen and dining space to the outdoors.
What aspects of the design can a client customize?
Every Turkel Design home is a custom home. We work with clients to make modifications, or we can create a fully custom design. In either case, the building components are manufactured in a factory and then delivered to the client’s land.
We gather each client’s input through thorough and approachable questionnaires to iterate on the schematic design of their home. Using a digital model, we explore the exterior and walk the client through the interior of each space. We help them select material finishes, fixtures, appliances, and hardware from our curated collection of products in order to make their home uniquely theirs. Throughout the process, we review the effects of each choice on the overall cost of the home.
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