In the 1980s, the “barndominium” was designed with the horse owner in mind. A Connecticut developer came up with the name — a mash-up of “barn” and “condominium” — to refer to a lot and horse stall purchased together in a subdivision where owners had a stake in a shared equestrian center.

The barndominiums of today don’t necessarily hold horses, though they’re certainly big enough. They do still promise open space, inside and out.

Interpretations vary, but many in the housing industry define today’s barndominiums — barndos, for short — as large metal structures with high ceilings, open-plan layouts, and garages or workshop areas. “The goal would be as much square footage as you can fit on the site,” said Andy Wiker, a preconstruction project manager at Conestoga Buildings, which builds barndos throughout the Northeast. “People want to play basketball in their living room.”

The style has become so popular that barndos were featured for the first time last year in a national survey of single-family homebuilders, in which 7% of the builders said they had constructed at least one in the past year.

The pandemic drove the recent building surge. Emily Stamper, a loan officer in Kentucky with the lender Rural 1st, said she first saw demand for barndominiums take off in 2020, when lumber was in short supply but metal was more readily available.

And according to Stacee Lynn Bell, 60, the self-styled Barndominium Lady, more people wanted bigger homes, more distant neighbors, land to raise chickens and grow vegetables, and an environment “not as hustle-bustle.” Since 2020, Bell and her 19-person team at the Barndominium Co. have designed over 1,000 bespoke barndo plans in 41 states, and she recently hired two more designers to keep up with the craze.

Bell herself lives in a barndo, about an hour north of Houston near Sam Houston National Forest.

One major draw of the style is customizability. The garages — generally big enough to house tractors, ATVs, hunting and fishing gear, and cleaning stations for catches — suit a rural lifestyle, Bell said. As Stamper put it, barndominiums “give people a blank canvas to do what they want.”

The price is right, too — as long as you’re willing to do some of the construction yourself.

In September 2023, Simona Carr, 43, moved from Marion, Ohio, to Golden Valley, Arizona, where she and her husband had bought 10 acres for $26,000 sight unseen. The area outside Kingman, Arizona, with mostly dirt roads, is like something out of an old western movie, she said, with her closest neighbor about a mile away.

A beginner prepper, Carr had been eager to flee the city, she said, “just to be prepared for what might take place in the future.”

For $51,000 a company built the metal exterior structure for her future 3,000-square-foot home. “I could get the big house that I wanted for such a small price,” she said. Once the home is done, Carr estimates (optimistically) that the total cost will be $210,000.

The rural surroundings present some challenges. Carr describes the roads to her house as “rugged to where people probably wouldn’t even want to come visit us,” a selling point to her but a potential detractor to contractors. And there aren’t enough of them to meet demand, she said.

So Carr and her husband have taken on many aspects of the build themselves. He put in the insulation and framed the bedroom walls, following YouTube tutorials. They’re learning along the way, and she’s second-guessing some decisions — like choosing black for the exterior. “I’m in the middle of the desert, and people are like, ‘Girl, you’re going to bake,’ ” she said. “ ‘You literally built a big hotbox.’ ” She hopes the spray-foam roof insulation and the mini-split system will remedy this.

With the limited help, when it will be done is another question. “I would say by the time I’m 95,” she joked.

For prospective barndo owners who don’t want to be as hands-on, builders are offering more ready-made options. The Original Log Cabin Homes company launched a line of log cabin barndominiums in 2023. Stephen Brumfield, who developed this product line, said they currently make up 20% of the company’s sales.

In southern Colorado, Shawn McKee is starting a 3,000-acre barndominium community, with each home selling for around $400,000. He’s betting buyers are “looking for something more than a cookie-cutter house in Colorado Springs for $600,000.”

But whether barndos’ appeal will last beyond this generation of owners remains to be seen. LaTarsha Cotton, a real estate agent in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, said that in her experience, these homes sit on the market longer than traditional ones. “It can be a little bit difficult to sell barndominiums that have already been customized to the previous owner’s likings,” she said. Personalization can be a double-edged sword.