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There wasn’t any chance Ron Sturgeon and his wife Linda Allen were going to build your everyday home — you know, bricks, shingles, dry wall.
“Linda and I, we both have the adventurer gene in a large way,” Sturgeon, a commercial real estate investor, says. “We like to travel a lot. We like art, we like abstract things. And so [building a home out of shipping containers] was a pretty good fit.”
That’s right, shipping containers.
Inspired by his recent repurposing of 150 containers to build the Fort Worth Design District on the north side of the city, Sturgeon created a model of the home out of 13 cardboard containers he had made to scale and showed it to Linda.
“I said, ‘Oh, hell no,’” Allen says. “This is the wrong world. What is this? It was just hard for me to visualize.”
But Sturgeon would eventually win her over.
“Ron and I don't do anything normal. For us just to build a nice brick home … no, we would’ve been so bored.”
Sturgeon was a Fort Worth Inc. Entrepreneur of Excellence finalist in 2022.
As self-made as a self-made man can be, Sturgeon began a life of entrepreneurism at the tender age of 17, left on his own and nowhere to go and with no money after the death of his father. He opened an auto repair shop in Haltom City, leading to his developing a chain of high-tech salvage yards, which he sold to Greenleaf Acquisitions, a wholly owned Ford Motor Co. subsidiary, in 1999.
He bought it back and sold it again, at which point he pivoted to the world of real estate as an investor, landlord, and developer.
He is the author of 10 books, all on Amazon, the most recent, Keeping the Lights on Downtown in America’s Small Cities — the Struggle Is Real.
Sturgeon was an EOE finalist as founder of Salon & Spa Galleria, which leases space to independent beauty and wellness professionals.
“The vision of Salon & Spa Galleria is to give ambitious beauty professionals all the tools they need to become successful independent business owners and help them uncap their earnings through turnkey salon spaces,” Sturgeon says.
Designed by architect Ken Schaumburg, whom Sturgeon says is “renowned for doing some crazy things,” the number of containers was significantly reduced from the original plan of using 13 containers. Containers are still used on two sides of the home, but a steel structure connects them, allowing the home to have a 20-foot-high ceiling in the living room.
The 5,500-square-foot home, which resides in the Linwood neighborhood, took two years to complete after construction began in 2019.
Asked if he’s at the forefront of what could be a big trend, Sturgeon has his doubts.
“It’s inexpensive and easy to build, but getting a real estate appraisal is difficult,” Sturgeon warns. “Getting the plans done with the city is difficult. Getting the insurance is difficult. It's not for the faint of heart.”
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Connecting containers on both sides of the house via a steel structure meant the design could be less restrictive. The living room features 20-foot-high ceilings.
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"All the furniture is grays, whites, blacks, because we knew we had some crazy pops of color in art," Allen says. She and Sturgeon had been purchasing decor for years that they knew would one day reside in their dream home. "Turned out, everything we bought fit beautifully in the home."
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“When you come into the house, you really don't even process that It’s containers," Allen says. "I mean, you'll see the metal walls, but it doesn't feel boxy like you would think if you were approaching the house.” Like many modern home designs, Linda and Ron's container home includes an open floor plan, lots of windows, and a large garage for Ron's car collection.
This story originally appeared in the March issue of Fort Worth Magazine.