Portland Container Co., will team up with a Houlton company, Tiny Homes of Maine, to outfit the container startup’s OpBox products.
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Portland Container Co., will team up with a Houlton company to outfit the container startup's OpBox products. Ben Davis, who owns South Portland-based Portland Container with his sister Emily Davis, has been constantly evolving his business line. The Davises started with a boat concierge business, True Course Yachting in Yarmouth. When it became clear his customers needed space to store their boats, the Davises got into the storage business, even outfitting an unused industrial oil tank as a giant storage unit — now filled with boats, cars and other items.
The storage business got them into shipping containers, and that in turn led to OpBox, which are basically shipping container-type spaces that can be customized for a range of retail clients, which include Portland-based Chart Metal Works and outdoor apparel brand Helly Hansen. It’s creating docking stations for electric scooters in Austin, Texas.
The Davises had been working with a boatbuilder to outfit the OpBoxes, but as Ben Davis told Mainebiz, the firm’s growth has necessitated more space and a dedicated workforce. “I looked in Indiana, talking to an RV manufacturer. I went to North Carolina to talk to boatbuilders there,” he says.
It turned out the best partner turned out to be a Houlton manufacturer, Tiny Homes of Maine, which is based in a 60,000-square-foot World War II-era airplane hangar. An OpBox is being created for Chart Metal Works, a maker of nautically inspired jewelry, to be used at the Annapolis [Md.] Boat Show, which is Oct. 3-5.
Tiny homes with a ‘wow factor’
Tiny Homes of Maine was started in 2016 by Corinne Watson, an engineer who has worked at Smith & Wesson’s Houlton factory and for IDEXX Laboratories, and her husband, Thomas Small, a designer and draftsman. They live in Windham, but are both from Symrna, not far from Houlton.
Building a tiny home started as an experiment. “Tom and I bought a hauling trailer in 2015 to see what we could do,” she says. They liked the results and started the company a year later in the airplane hangar in Houlton.
Tiny Homes of Maine now has three full-time employees and a regular crew of six contractors — with specialties in electrical work, HVAC and plumbing. They build everything onsite, from the trailer the homes sit on to all the finish work.
“It’s not like we invented tiny houses — people see them on TV — but when people see the high quality there’s definitely a ‘wow factor.’”
There’s a 6-month waiting list for the new homes. An available Allagash model is listed at $76,000.
Along with Tiny Homes of Maine’s employees, Davis says OpBox will hire additional workers. One hitch with the hangar is not heated and both parties are looking for a suitable space in or near Houlton, where the companies each have room to grow. “Our hope is to move into some space that’s winterized,” Watson says.
News and notes
Ledgewood Construction of South Portland is managing expansion of the Falmouth Public Library.
Landry / French Construction, which is based in Scarborough, completed a “summer slammer” project at University of Southern Maine, renovating the Brooks Dining Hall.
