Triangle Now Spotlight: Small Minded

Mandy Lea

Pink Hill hosts a major celebration for minor dwellings  

Head 18 miles south of Kinston along N.C. Highway 11, just past Deep Run, and you’ll find yourself in Pink Hill, the epitome of small-town with a population hovering around 500. For one weekend in April, this quaint country outpost will get even smaller when it hosts the second annual Tiny House N.C. Street Festival April 27 – 28.

Don’t let the diminutive title mislead you, tiny houses are a big deal. The small house lifestyle is a social movement – people making the conscious decision to downsize living spaces. Whether driven by concerns for the environment, financial constraints, the desire to explore, or the freedom to live more simply, Americans are rethinking what makes a house a home.

Festival founder Andrew Odom has given it much thought. Odom and his wife Crystal “built tiny” in 2009, he says, then traveled the country in an RV for two years before settling down in a more traditional “sticks and bricks” house to practice homesteading. As a vocal advocate for tiny house living, Odom wanted to bring attention to our state’s growing role in the movement. When it came to selecting a location, he first considered the Asheville area, where tiny living has really taken root. But it was his love of Pink Hill and its supportive small town community, like festival partners Pink Hill Pharmacy and Gifts and Chef & the Farmer, that cemented his decision to think locally.

Mandy Lea

The festival welcomes enthusiasts and the curious for a two-day immersion in small living. You can tour dwellings of all kinds: modern and fully customized mobile homes; box truck conversions and skoolies (converted school buses to the uninitiated); gypsy wagons; yurts; and even an itty bitty wedding chapel on wheels. There will be presentations about tiny living; a hands-on building experience with Deek Diedricksen, nationally renowned tiny house builder; and live music and food, including Vivian Howard’s food truck and barbecue pork plates from the Pink Hill Volunteer Fire Department.   –Katherine Poole

10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Sunday; $10 single-day pass, $9 senior and veteran single-day pass, $25 three-day pass; tinyhousencstreetfestival.com