Home of the Month Summary

November 2026 Home of the Month: Santa Cruz HS6
Manufacturer: Honomobo
Builder: Novare Construction
Location: Santa Cruz, California
Square Footage: 1,920 sq ft.
Stories: 2
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 2.5

High in the redwoods above Santa Cruz, the Honomobo HS6 demonstrates how a factory-built steel home can hold its own on terrain that resists conventional construction. Delivered in 2024 and set by builder Novare, this 1,920-square-foot, two-storey residence occupies a narrow shelf on a forested ridge — a site reached by a single winding access road, with steep drop-offs on three sides and mature timber standing within feet of the building envelope.

Rather than fight the topography, the design stacks its program vertically. Living, dining and kitchen occupy the main floor behind a two-storey glass wall oriented toward the canyon; two bedroom suites and a full bath sit above. The compact 2-bed, 2.5-bath layout keeps the building footprint tight, which in turn kept excavation, retaining work and tree removal to a minimum on a lot where every square foot of disturbance carries a cost.

Architectural Clarity & Materiality

The exterior is deliberately reductive: charcoal corrugated steel siding wrapping a structural steel frame, broken only by a warm weathered-steel accent panel at the entry corner and cedar soffits that glow against the dark cladding. Black-framed, floor-to-ceiling glazing runs the full two storeys on the primary elevations, so the forest reads as the building's only ornament. Steel-framed awnings shade the upper operable windows, and a long cedar deck with wire-mesh guardrail cantilevers off the view side, extending the living space into the tree canopy.

Inside, the same restraint carries through. An open-riser stair in solid wood, hung from a blackened steel stringer and guarded in frameless glass, anchors the main volume without interrupting sightlines through the glass wall behind it. Interior features include:

• Ceilings: 8'10" throughout, with Canadian-harvested cedar at ceilings and exterior soffits
• Cabinetry: High-quality melamine cabinetry with soft-close hardware
• Appliances: 30" induction cooktop and convection wall oven, 30" panelized refrigerator, 24" built-in hood fan and dishwasher, 24" stacked washer/dryer
• Fixtures: Kohler plumbing fixtures throughout
• Countertops: Hard-surface countertops
• Flooring: Vinyl plank with 0.5 mm wear layer
• Glazing: Dual-pane high-performance windows with LOE 366 coating, arranged as full-height glass walls on two elevations
• Layout: Main-floor open-concept living, dining and kitchen with powder room; two bedroom suites and full bath on the upper level

Building on a Constrained Ridge

The site presented the classic Santa Cruz Mountains problem: excellent views, difficult access. A narrow, switchbacked driveway limited both the size of deliveries and the staging area available for a crane, and the surrounding forest left almost no room for conventional on-site framing, material storage or weather protection.

Off-site construction answered all three constraints at once. The home was manufactured indoors at Honomobo's Edmonton facility, shipped in February 2024, and set by Novare in a matter of days — compressing the exposure window on a mountain site where winter rain routinely stalls stick-built schedules. Because the modules arrived with structure, envelope, mechanical and finishes already complete, the disturbed area around the building stayed small enough to preserve the mature trees that define the property.

Resilience was engineered into the assembly rather than added to it. The structural steel frame and non-combustible corrugated steel siding, paired with a Class A fire-rated roof system, give the home a hard exterior in a wildland-urban interface setting. Closed-cell spray foam in walls, roof and rim joists delivers effective R-24 walls and R-38.9 ceilings, and the all-electric mechanical package — a 36,000 BTU air-source heat pump with ducted mini-split, a 160 CFM ERV, and a 200-amp solar-ready panel — is paired with a rooftop photovoltaic array and on-site water storage for a home that runs lean on a ridge with limited services.

A Proven Model For Steep-Site Modular

The Santa Cruz HS6 answers a question that comes up on nearly every mountain lot: whether modular can go where a conventional crew struggles. Through the pairing of Honomobo's steel platform and Novare’s site work, this project shows that a two-storey, fully-glazed, architecturally resolved home can be delivered to a constrained forest site on a predictable schedule — without the cost escalation that difficult access usually guarantees.

A Testament To High-Performance Modular Design

This home proves that off-site construction is a tool for ambition, not compromise. From the non-combustible steel envelope and all-electric systems to the two-storey glass walls and cedar-lined deck, the Santa Cruz HS6 shows how prefab can meet the demands of a challenging California site — resilient, efficient, and unmistakably designed.