Backcountry A-Frame: Janice x Mike

Gather round friends, and tune in to hear Janice & I chat about Janice's experience building a DEN and running a STR business with her build. Janice is a general contractor & developer, and shares her unique insights into working with DEN's offerings, and what specifically about DEN's plans made her build easier.

View Backcountry A-Frame's IG here, and their Airbnb page here.

1. Introduction and Background

Mike: Let's start with just some basic context. Who are you? Where are you in the world? And, you built a DEN design - which one did you build? 

Janice: My name is Janice Stitzer, and I'm located just outside of Denver, Colorado. I built a DEN A-Frame house back in, let's see, 2022, it was completed right after COVID, of course.

We all felt that need to get away to remote outdoors. When I first saw the DEN A-Frame plan, it was in Dwell Magazine, and I immediately was just gobsmacked. I was like, 'I have to have this. How do I get it?' And so, you know, at the time, I think Dwell had written up the story of DEN Outdoors and with A-Frames perched on a mountainside for like $99.

That's ultimately not the one that I built, but it really just lit a fire of this dream, to have something just out in the remote backcountry of Colorado. So that's all, that's how it all started. 

2. Building Experience and Hiring a Contractor

Mike: That's amazing. you're also coming at this with some unique experience because you are a general contractor and a developer.

Is that right? 

Janice: Yes, yes, right now. 

Mike: Yeah, 

Janice: Right now we're developing a little more of a smaller hospitality resort. But, you know, even though we have building experience, we were, we built this about two and a half hours away from where we live. And even with that... we still hired a general contractor in the area.

That's a crucial piece to understanding that, you know, you have to pay someone local who understands that market and who has access and their own network. And that really was instrumental in getting this done in a timely basis. And even through COVID, it was difficult. It still took us...

I would say, like, because we couldn't build through certain seasons of winter, and so the timing aspect and, just building within a reasonable timeline to finish was instrumental in getting to the finish line of, you know, launching it as a short term rental, and even just getting it done so that we could Refinance it. Because at the time, um, we paid out of pocket for this to be built and we did that for multiple reasons.

We didn't want to go to the bank. We did have access to funds to do this. With the intention to finance it after the fact. 

Mike: Yeah, gotcha. Just for clarity's sake, were you guys acting as... you said that you hired a general contractor, but were you a general contractor at the time, or were you just like amateur builders, like, you know, approach first project. 

3. Sourcing Materials and Decision-Making

Janice: You know, my husband is actually a third generation contractor.

So he was, yes, his father is still in construction, commercial construction. My husband grew up doing all the things on a job site. And so he was very familiar with the processes of building. Where we fit into the construction process was that we sourced everything. 

We didn't have... we didn't have to be handheld through the process.

A lot of times when you do work with a general contractor, they do hold your hand through the process, through the selection of materials and all of that. We came to him and we had everything picked out. So that's kind of, you know, a little bit of, um, of the speed of construction with, with the contractor we worked with.

It was just like, we've made the decision. We are easy people to work with. 

Mike: Gotcha. Gotcha. 

Janice: Versus like, 'Oh, I don't know what, you know, I don't know about this cabinetry or that this flooring' and you know, that kind of decision making that has to be done when you're building a house. 

Mike: Right. Right. 

4. Benefits of Pre-Designed Plans

Mike: Um, so you said that you do some mentorship, with our mutual friend, Rob from Robuilt, right? To like help people understand the complexities and challenges of building. And, before we started the interview, you're remarking on like, on how, you know, pre-designed plans or like even a pre-designed plan from DEN really helps to paint a path, right? Or set a vision or set a scope. What do you think the benefits were for your project or, any other project of selecting a DEN plan in the first place? 

Janice: Right, yeah, so one of the hardest aspects is to figure out a floor plan. And not just the floor plan that works and flows, but you have to look at the elevations, meaning the four walls, or, you know, if it's an A-Frame, that gets a little bit more complex because there's limitations with A-Frames, um, but it all has to kind of come together aesthetically.

Design wise, not just the floor plan, because if you're looking at a floor plan, it's just this two dimensional thing and it looks great on paper, but the windows play a big part in what a home ultimately looks like. And DEN outdoors plans, they tend to be so just on point with everything. And you add in the renderings, you get a holistic feel of what the end product or the house is going to look like. Conceptually that's hard for a lot of people to visualize. And that's really why I use DEN outdoors for my floor plan, because especially for A-Frames. We all, we all have seen the 70s A-Frames and they're using standard windows. That's what makes them dark and dreary.

And so when you have something that has such spectacular renderings, you feel like you can envision yourself in that space. And so I just don't think that It's almost I hate to say that it's a waste of time to go totally custom, but having a floor plan or something that like DEN that has something that is completely deliverable, right, like you can see everything from the floor plan to the 3-D renderings - that cuts down on so much time planning and designing.

If you're going custom, you're going to be sitting down with an architect, trying to piece together different aspects of different things that you like from different homes. And so if you're already talking about, let's just say 6 months to permitting, and that's pretty fast, you're talking about at least 6 months trying to plan and design.

And that's planning and designing is super tedious and an architect has to hold your hand throughout that entire process. And that's where the expense of architectural soft costs will start - is hourly. Or, you know, typically, if you're working with an architect, they'll give you a proposal, but, you know, the more changes that you're trying to integrate, the more hourly that you're going to end up paying, and then you're going to try to conceptualize this in your mind, 'how is this going to look?'

Mike: Right. Right. and I think like, you know, in my experience, we encounter some customers that can barely even read a floor plan, let alone a set of construction documents. So it's like you have the risk of a client not even understanding the common language of design and architects.

And I think that that's also why like three dimensional representations or like interactive 3-D models are so beneficial because they help to kind of depict space, you know, in a way that people can actually understand, you know, if they're not like used to just being like, 'oh, cool. I'll look at a 2-D representation, and like, try to imagine that'. Um, but yeah, I think, like, I think that, um, yeah, I mean, everything, everything that you're saying is stuff that we experience, uh, all the time, right? 

Janice: And I think you could still make it yours, right? Like we bought this, the A-Frame house plan and we did, we made a couple of changes.

We changed where the entry was and we added a bathroom, but it wasn't a heavy lift. It was like, 'hey, Let's mirror this bump out on the other side to make a second floor bathroom, and we're going to repurpose the entry to a laundry area and then the laundry area within the original plans is the entry, so it doesn't... it's not hard to reimagine DEN's plans, when it's already pretty well thought out.

5. Customizing the DEN Plans

Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. How did having a set of plans help you establish a good relationship with the general contractor you hired into the project? 

Janice: It was pretty quick. I mean, at that time you guys didn't offer the robust services and plans that you do now, so it was just more of a conversion to the CAD because you guys didn't offer CADs, but it was pretty quick and painless.

Here's what this floor plan is, here's what we want to change, and then we were basically, you know, off to the races. We sent it off to mechanical, and structural. And, you know, we're a little bit more because we have snow loads here and everything else... that was a little bit different to have to deal with. I know this is not something that you not every jurisdiction will have to deal with. 

But again, it's that the speed of being able to get to the permitting process. Cause we didn't have to make a lot of extra changes to the floor plan to, to get to where we wanted to be like, okay, this is, we're pretty much happy with the original floor plans.

We just wanted an extra bathroom really. 

6. Personal Experience in the A-Frame

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool. So, you mentioned that you're running this as a short term rental, but certainly you've stayed in the building yourself. Like you spent, yes. 

Janice: Of course! 

Mike: Nice, nice. And what's been your like longest stretch of stay in this particular house, right?

And what's your favorite room or space in this particular design? 

Janice: I don't get to spend a lot of time there because we have a teenager who is in very competitive volleyball and then another 10 year old who keeps us very busy. But, you know, we always make a point to get up there and make sure everything looks great for our guests. But every time I pull up, it's always What I imagined and what I would feel like when I saw that dwell right up, it's like you just breathe this sigh of like, 'oh yeah, I remember this is why I wanted this', you know, we get caught up in the, in the everyday and it's like, okay, the space is, is just so amazing that I feel like this is what I want everybody to experience.

Like, this is why I kind of built it and wanted to share it. Like, everybody should be able to feel this piece of, you know, whether they're dreaming about it, right? Because we do get people who are like, 'oh, I want to build a DEN!' and they want to experience, an A-Frame in person. And so, I think that, It's just something that because it's not something that people live in. You don't come across A-Frames for full time living. 

Mike: Right. Right. Right. It's like, where do you even hang the art? You know? 

Janice: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because my builder was like, 'A-Frames are dumb.' I like, 'okay, A-Frames are dumb, but you're building it. Right'. He's like, 'Yeah'. Um, but it was actually featured, I think last summer in 5280 magazine, which is... in Colorado that's one of the, um, I guess home magazine. And I'm like, 'see they're not dumb. People love them!' 

Mike: That's awesome. What vindication! 

Janice: Yeah. He doesn't regret building it. Of course. He was a great person to work with. Um, but I, I'd like to say that we were pretty easy people to work with.

Mike: Nice. Nice. And what's, um. You know, when you're inside the building, like what, uh, what's your, what's your favorite part of, of, you know, the 

Janice: Hands down is... For me, it was, I guess it's our back elevation. So it's that expanse of windows.

Mike: Yeah. 

Janice: That makes the biggest difference with any design. Just floor to ceiling windows.

If you're ever building anything, never buy off the shelf. You, it just something about large windows that make a space and I will be, I will pay. I mean, yes, we paid a lot for windows, but it's so worth it. There's something very intangible about good design. And in my opinion, DEN brings it. It's like, when I say intangible, there's a value associated with that as well.

Like you can't. It will always be great ROI to have something that has glazing. In our, in the business, we call it glazing. And if you have a large window within a great living space, that's what gives you that feeling when you walk into the space. 

Mike: Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. 

Janice: And it, yeah.

And if it's a short term rental as well, it's an intangible feeling. There's ROI with good design. 

9. Guest Feedback and Location Appeal

Mike: Yeah, that's for sure. For sure. I mean, like our, our whole company is based off of that premise. You've been running this as a short term rental for a few years now, is that correct?

Janice: Yes. 

Mike: What have your guests been saying about the property experience or the building experience? Like what, what stands out for them? 

Janice: You know, it's kind of all encompassing, just being in the middle of nature. Now it might seem like it's remote in the sense, you know, we call it the Back Country A-Frame and it is in an area that is not really well visited. If you're in Colorado just between Silverthorne, which is where all of, um, the ski resorts are, and then another popular ski resort in Steamboat, and so they're both about 45 minutes away, and so we're not really, there's no real, like, tourism where we are, and that's kind of by design, like, that's how we envisioned us being here, to get away from it all, and what we find is that We have more couples than anything. Not really families, just couples wanting to get away and they just they'll hole up for a weekend and they're seeking that either just a reconnection or just unplugging.

And I think that it just gives it to them where, again, that wall of windows that the loft where they sleep when you wake up, I don't have any blinds and I'm very transparent about that, but when you wake up and you're looking out to, you know, just the forest, it's just an amazing feeling.

And that's, the expectation, and we deliver on that expectation. 

8. Favorite Features of the Design

Mike: Nice, nice. And yeah, I'm like, I'm looking at your Instagram account right now. that view is amazing. 

Janice: Yeah, and that's, you know, part of when you buy land, you have to walk the land. When we were building this a frame, we had a lot of people reaching out to us asking about how to build and how to find land.

And we lucked out on this piece of land because there was a pretty flat spot to build, and then you have to envision how you're going to situate the home. And so, you know, we essentially made that the back elevation, where we knew that would be kind of just -the main character is the forest.

And we do have neighbors, you know, because the funny thing is that people do want remoteness, but then, they feel a little bit safer to see that there's people close by. So, um, they don't want complete remoteness because I've been there by myself and I'm like, Oh, this is a little. This could be a little bit scary.

It's really dark out. 

Mike: Right, right, right. 

Janice: But there's a little comfort knowing that I could run, you know, not even 10 minutes down the road. We could see our neighbors next door and across the way, but everybody has about five or six acres within this small development, but just again, looking for a piece of land and knowing where you're going to be situated is pretty much key.

9. Financial Success and Advice for Others

Mike: Yeah, yeah. What an incredible piece of property. if you don't mind sharing, how's it going from a short term rental investment perspective? Are you guys cashflow positive? Like, you know, is it? 

Janice: We are cashflow positive. 

Mike: Is it cash flowing enough for you?

Tell us a little bit of your short term journey. 

Janice: I come from a finance background a real estate background. Buying the land, I will always tell anybody who asks this, is going to be the most important piece of the puzzle, because your infrastructure costs could eat up a lot of your budget that you didn't intend on ever putting into a project.

And so when we bought this land, it was actually two parcels combined. The same owner owned both of the parcels and for some reason nobody really knew it. It did kind of go on and off the market, but I immediately saw that. 'Okay, this is reasonably priced and if anything, I could sell off one parcel', which is what I did.

So then my land basis was relatively inexpensive. So, in analyzing my build costs and also understanding the market comparables, we basically built and we were able to cash out refinance and put A little over $30,000 into our pockets. So, the way that, works, hopefully you all are following me. Basically, I knew that it'd be appraised higher than what I built for. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Janice: In real estate terms, we are in it for nothing, right? I got all of my money back and then some. And so it's infinite returns. If I have short term rental income covering my mortgage, I'm cash flowing infinitely, 

Mike: Right right. 

Janice: So we're very happy. Yeah, we're happy with the outcome. It's not going to be a home run every single time. I came into it going. If I have to leave 25% of what I put into it, I'm happy because you typically look at an investment that way, right? If you're going and buying something, you're going to put down 20%, maybe 25%.

Mike: Yeah.

Janice: From a short term rental standpoint. At the time we were trying to get our C of O [Certificate of Occupancy], and this was again, reminder, it was like COVID. We were waiting on cabinets still, and you don't have to have all your cabinetry in. We were waiting on uppers. We were waiting like on various things, but you can get C of O without having all of your punch list items completed.

And we were after the C of O because we wanted to do a cash out refinance because at that time, the rates were going up just on a daily basis. So we, when we ended up finally closing on our loan, we saw rates jump from like 4%, which was like kind of high back then, but we closed at like, oh gosh, lemme see, I think it was like, I think 5.75% is what we ended up at.

Mike: Oh, wow! 

Janice: Yeah, and we were like, 'oh my gosh', 

Mike: You're like, you're like, 'we need to lock in that rate now!' . 

Janice: Yes. On a daily basis. I was stressing because what that means is that 

Mike: The carry is higher. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Janice: Yeah, now we're looking back at it today going, okay, 5.75%. That's pretty darn good, right?

Mike: I know. I know. It's crazy. Um, yeah, I mean... 

Janice: So that's why the speed of construction is really crucial. Like once you start, the saying is like, when the airplane takes off, you have to land it. Right. 

Mike: Right. 

Janice: So like, we're paying, we're paying money. We're paying the lumber costs were sky high at the time and we had no choice but to like to finish it.

Yeah to land the plane. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I think maybe only one question remains, right? If you had a friend or a mentee who wanted to build a DEN, what type of advice would you give them? 

Janice: Not to sound like a commercial, but I honestly refer everybody to DEN Outdoors, because I get people still DM'ing me asking about, 'what should my floor plan look like' I'm like, 'you know, you don't want to reinvent the wheel'. You can use DEN as a jumping off point and that's what we did, you know, it's already a tedious process.

And if you have already a great floor plan with a great design, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Building a home can be a very stressful process. And if you have to add in more decisions on top... you will be so decision fatigued if you're starting from scratch and trying to build like a custom home. What DEN delivers is a very tangible piece to a dream. You can buy the plans and you can sit on it until you find the piece of land because really, residential is probably one of the easier lifts, I would say, to building. Because you can find land almost anywhere, and unless you're in some commercial district, by right, you can build a home.

They can't stop you from building a residential structure most of the time. And so if you already have this tangible dream in, DEN outdoor plans, all you have to do is then go look for the dream land. 

Mike: Right, right. That's amazing. That's amazing. And then, before we hop off, you mentioned that you have a new project.

Do you want to plug the new project? Is it too early? I don't want to- 

Janice: I don't know that it's too early. We are trying to get it launched by April... May. 

I would say May. 

Mike: Okay. Well, it's right around the corner. 

Janice: It is, but yeah, there's a lot of pressure cause, we have a lot to get done, but we're building seven micro cabins in Salida, Colorado.

Kind of a play on back country. This is called 'Frontcountry Modern Lodging' and because it's more of almost like a roadside area where it's very accessible and that's what 'frontcountry' means, it's more accessible, you pull off to the side and you're like, 'okay, let's fish right here'.

But so, you know, this is kind of like the opposing aspect of backcountry where this is very accessible. We're close to a lot of dining. We're close to a ski resort. We're close to hikes. If you love, 14ers, we have, I guess, four or five 14ers that you can hike. So if that kind of thrills you, that's basically, you know, it's more, it's. a base camp for anyone who loves the outdoors. 

Mike: Awesome. So Frontcountry is launching this summer. 

Janice: Yes. 

Mike: Amazing. Okay. Let me just say on behalf of the whole team at DEN, thanks so much for spending some time with me today, Janice. The Backcountry A Frame looks incredible. Well done on the project.

Janice: Well, I have to thank you for it because if it wasn't for you it would never have come to fruition. 

So we go, yeah, we go way back. I actually want to, I would be curious to know like what number customer am I? Because yeah, I'm going to... 

Mike: I'm going to pause the interview here and then I'm going to, I'll look this up for you.