Incredible Eau Villa Is a 4-Person Tiny House You Can Place Anywhere

Eau Villa is a new concept of a downsized home from Canada, designed and built by Bauhaus Habitat. It’s a tiny residence suitable for long-term residency (*with some compromises), usable with three different platforms. Despite the name, which translates to “water villa,” Eau Villa can be houseboat, or can function as a proper tiny home, if you ask for it to be set up on a trailer with wheels. It can also serve as a fixed home, with a more traditional type of foundation.

If only in this regard, Eau Villa is different from other downsized homes, be they on land or on water. To date, we’ve only seen a couple of instances of tinies with this kind of versatility, and the fact that this is a series production model could signal that this type of tiny house is here to stay.

It’s an attractive proposition for a home, if we’re being honest. Eau Villa is still tiny, offering just 200 square feet of living space, but it makes up for the compact footprint with two large decks that expand the available everyday area, and a narrower piece of deck that offers storage for larger water toys. As long as you’re not the kind who likes to buy new stuff every two weeks, whether clothes or gadgets, or anything else you can think of, it could work as a comfortable home.

That last part is very important: Eau Villa is compact, and its design proposes downsized living in the true sense of the word. You don’t get much- hidden storage, and you don’t get modular furniture or small design tricks that add extra functionality. You get a small house with four separate living areas, offering accommodation for as many as four people, with very little storage and very little in terms of creature comforts.

The entrance is done directly into the living room. The unit showcased in the video available at the bottom of the page is a floating tiny, so you step off the dock into the living, with a coffee station on the right. That coffee station is part of the kitchen, and that should be enough to give you a proper appreciation of just how small this house is.

The living room features a beautiful, custom-made sofa in bright yellow, with a simple fold-out mechanism that turns it into a guest bed for two. There’s a smart TV and soundbar in front of it, but the highlight is, without a doubt, the large sliding glass door that gives out to the lower deck. There’s a hot tub there, and a set of wooden stairs that lead to the upper terrace, the piece de resistance of the tiny.

Because it sits on top of the home, it’s very large and has room for a sectional sofa and a couple of bean bags, which means you could hold dinner parties out there and not feel cramped. This is Eau Villa’s way of making up for the compact space inside.

The divider between the living room and kitchenette is a four-person fold-out dining table, more suitable for a quick snack than gourmet dining. The same goes for the kitchenette: you only get a microwave oven and a sink, which has to do double service as the bathroom sink. Arthur from Bauhaus Habitat explains that this is a compromise they willingly made, since the unit is located in a marina within walking distance from several excellent restaurants. Plus, he says, this tiny is made to encourage you to go out, not stay inside and slave by the stove.

The bathroom is across from the kitchenette, larger than this one but still incomplete, because it lacks a sink. Still, you get a full-size shower and a toilet, and the water tanks underneath are pumped out regularly by the marina. The bedroom is at the other end, offering a queen-size bed, also custom-made, and some storage options – the kind you’d find in a vacation rental, not a proper home.

Eau Villa is made with fiberglass and foam, sits on a wooden deck with PVC floats underneath, and is offered with an AC-heater mini-split, and backup batteries hidden under the main bed. The showcased unit is hooked to the marina for electricity and plumbing. Speaking of units on display, Bauhaus Habitat is offering the tinies as rental, so future customers can experience life on the water at Chambly Marina, QC, Canada.

The second season at Eau Villa opens in June 2023, but the units are also for sale. The listed price is CAD$149,000 (US$110,900 at the current exchange rate), not including taxes and shipping, but including every piece of furniture and appliance you see.