Building homes from Edmonton to Honduras

A love of architecture helped a St. Albert man meet his match both personally and professionally, and has allowed him to make a world of difference for families 6,500 kilometres away.

Trevor Hoover is the vice-president and senior designer at Habitat Studio and Workshop, an Edmonton-based company that constructs custom designed and built energy-efficient homes.

He got his start in the industry more than two decades ago, shortly after graduating from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. At the time, he was lucky to find employment – only three graduates from his architectural technology program found jobs in the field, two of whom were Hoover and his wife Michelle.

He’s been with the company for the last 18 years and oversees all the design work for the roughly 15 energy-efficient homes constructed each year.

“We’ve created our own special little niche. There’s not a whole lot of companies that do what we do,” Hoover said.

But there are a lot of companies that try.

“There’s two words that really bug me now that I think are overused,” he said. “One is the word ‘custom’ (and) the other is the word ‘green.’ ”

While some companies consider a prepared floor plan with slight modifications to be custom, Habitat thinks differently.

“We never build the same house twice. Never,” he said. “Every home is designed completely from scratch on a blank piece of paper.”

Habitat homes also go beyond energy-efficient light bulbs and formaldehyde-free cabinets — the company is the provincial leader in the construction of net-zero homes. So far, the company has completed six net-zero homes in the Edmonton area.

Net zero homes use renewable resources, like wind and solar power, to produce energy to offset the amount of energy used by the home.

Peter Amerongen, president and co-founder of Habitat Studio, hired Hoover nearly two decades ago after first working with his wife, who was doing some drafting for the company.

“He’s a very hard worker, very focused and very creative,” he said. “It amazes me how he continually comes up with new ideas (and) new approaches in a wide variety of styles.”

The world of homebuilding is very competitive, he said, adding Hoover helps Habitat Studio stand out.

“He’s the key driver and generator of our great design and our design is what distinguishes us from our competitors,” he said. “His role is absolutely essential.”

Global philanthropy

Although Hoover is accustomed to designing and building homes for well-off families in the greater Edmonton area, he was drawn to a poor area in Honduras five years ago.

The United Nations lists Honduras as having the highest murder rate in the world, with roughly 6,300 intentional killings in 2010.

San Pedro Sula is a particularly violent city for travellers, with criminals targeting tourist vans departing from airports.

“Nobody goes anywhere without a gun. If you go to their equivalent of a 7-Eleven, there will be a guard out front with a big gun,” Hoover said. “A Coca-Cola truck will pull up to deliver Coke to the store and the first guy out of the Coca-Cola truck is a guy with a gun.”

Despite the danger, he and a handful of others fly into San Pedro Sula each spring to construct a home for a family in need.

“It’s more a glorified garage more than anything else, but the people that we build it for are so incredibly needy,” he said. “There’s nothing in Honduras, and they have very little hope, if any hope.”

A casual conversation between Hoover and a local churchgoer kick-started the project. The woman happened to know of an individual interested in funding such a project, but was looking for someone to do the labour. This individual continues to contribute roughly $10,000 each year to the project.

It takes roughly one week for the team of Habitat builders and Honduran locals to build the pre-designed home, which is essentially a 600-square-foot box with two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and an open living area.

It might not seem like much, but it’s more than most people in Honduras have ever had, considering many people live in a cardboard box.

“You could go there, kick a soccer ball up as high as you can in the air and whoever it hits, they’ll need a house,” he said.

Church pastors in Honduras select the recipients of the new home.

The keys to the first home were handed over to a grandmother who was taking care of five grandchildren after their parents were killed. The second home was for a family that lived in a burned-out car before moving into a closet at a local school.

“It’s pretty special to have gone there five years in a row and just see how you can change a life just by simply giving them a simple house,” he said.

Honduras is by far the craziest place he’s ever travelled to, but he said it is far from his favourite.

Hoover, his wife and their two children try to take at least two trips each year, with Hawaii ranking on the top of the list.

The family plans to escape the cold Alberta winter this December with some long-overdue time on a Hawaii beach.