Felton, CA – Monarch 106

Ted Holladay is a creative director and brand strategist with a forty-year track record working with multinational, award-winning brands. He’s lived in the Santa Cruz mountains with his wife and two children for more than 20 years.

During the COVID lockdowns, like many net-based workers, Holladay stopped going to his studio in downtown Santa Cruz opting instead to work at home. “I eventually just let go of my studio,” he says.

“And then I started thinking, well, I don’t want to work out of my living room, right? I mean, I have this great long desk and it’s a real small house so, I started looking around for what I could do to expand my space at home. I did a ton of research on, I mean everything you could imagine, from the way it’s made to finding a custom contractor who could build something local for me. That’s when I finally found the Bunkie Company. I weighed all the pluses and minuses and then ordered one.”

Holladay decided to purchase a prefabricated Bunkie, in part, because he found it impossible to find a local contractor to build something bespoke. “The speed with which Bunkie was able to get it out,” he says, “ship it to me and all that, was impressive.” After its arrival, Holladay, his 19-year-old son, and 30-year-old son-in-law got to work assembling the Bunkie themselves.

“It’s great quality,” Holladay says. “Everybody who looks at it is like, ‘I can’t believe it’s in your yard!’ It’s so amazing. I feel like the Bunkie hits it right on the head in terms of design,” Ted says. “It’s like if a kid drew a picture of a house, a shed, like that’s literally what it would look like. An A-frame with walls – the classic silhouette of a house. It’s just such a strong design. I still can’t get over it.”

As with all building projects, Holladay encountered the occasional set-back assembling his Bunkie. For example, the glass wall, which he loves, proved difficult to install because he worked with a sub-par contractor. “Honestly, I was working with the wrong installer,” he says. Once we got that sorted out, it was kind of cool to be able to connect directly with the Bunkie Company whenever I couldn’t figure something out. I could call Evan. I would text images to him sometimes, asking questions, and he would send the image back with instructions written on it. That was super cool, and he was usually so fast responding to me.”

When asked to sum up his experience finding, purchasing, and building his Bunkie, Holladay excitedly said, “Well, OK, let me just say this. I’m a huge fan of all things design – from architecture to fashion to branding, which is what I specialize in, photography too. So, when we picked out our little house in the Santa Cruz mountains, it was a beautiful, tiny little home. When it came time to look for a studio for the yard, the architecture of it really mattered to me. My second choice just wasn’t good enough. They were trying too hard design-wise. They were too boisterous and grandiose. Whereas the Bunkie fits out in nature. Its simple lines fit in with my Redwood trees. It’s kind of hard for me to describe, but it’s just pared all the way down to the bare minimum of what a studio building like this should be like. This is like what it should be. There aren’t flourishes and overhangs and things added onto it to make it feel cool. It just is cool the way it is, you know what I mean?”

We couldn’t have said it any better than that. Get in touch when you’re ready to discuss your own Bunkie build with us.

Also, check out Ted’s work (including lots of photos of his Bunkie studio)

Studio Holladay