Minahasa's traditional house travels well

Jongker Rumteh, The Jakarta Post, Manado

The growing fascination with traditional houses has put Woloan, a small village in Manado, on the map both here and abroad.

It is known as the place where customers can order knock-down wooden Minahasan traditional houses to their own specifications.

Located about 3 km from Tomohon and about 28 km from Manado, the village is the home of carpenters famous for their skills in building traditional houses. Buyers comes from Jakarta, Bali and Batam, as well as Argentina, Japan, Poland, South Korea, the Philippines and the United States.

The prefab house was previously made based on orders from Minahasa people living in different places in the country but nostalgic for their traditional architecture. It was only later that the business attracted foreigners visiting North Sulawesi.

Soon, the increasing demand for the traditional houses encouraged locals, who learned their house-construction skills from their ancestors, to take the business seriously.

According to Yus Ngala, a 54-year-old who has been in the business for the past 15 years, it is a lucrative trade.

A 112-type house, measuring 8 meters by 14 meters, can be sold for Rp 65 million in North Sulawesi, with additional transportation and assembling charges for work outside the province.

"We usually send five to six people to assemble the house for buyers living in Java and Bali. For a foreign buyer, two people will be enough to do the assembling job. Usually we send the chief carpenter and one of his more experienced hands. The buyers will pay for the travel expenses," Yus said.

The 112-type house has three bedrooms -- each measuring 3.5- meters by 4 meters, as well as a sitting room and a terrace. However, the knock-down house has neither a kitchen nor bathroom.

Yus explained the original construction the kitchen and bathroom were usually built separately from the main house in traditional Minahasan homes.

"That is why we don't include a kitchen and a bathroom in our prefab houses. But if the buyer wants us to provide these two spaces, we'll build them. We make these houses based on order, but generally, buyers would like to have the original version."

Usually standing three meters high, the house has two large stairs in the front and rear parts of the house as well as 19 glass windows and six doors. The height of the house can be adjusted depending on the buyer's tastes and conforms to their security considerations.

Sometimes the house is built on stilts about three meters above the ground and the space underneath can be used for various purposes, such as a parking space.

The 112-type house is usually built by eight carpenters and takes two months to complete.

Woloan villagers also make other types of houses, like the 36- type (6 x 6 meters) that only has one bedroom, type 64 with two bedrooms and type 84 with three bedrooms. Prices range from Rp 32 million to Rp 47.5 million.

Marthen Rutu, a businessman who also designs and builds the knock-down house, said that he returned from Hawaii in June, where he assembled a type 112 prefab Minahasa traditional house. He sold the house for US$10,000, inclusive of transportation and assembling charges.

He said the same type of house would be sold for Rp 85 million for buyers from Jakarta, including for transportation and assembling charges, but it would be higher for buyers from other provinces, depending on transportation costs.

"This 112-type house is sold at Rp 95 million to a buyer in Bali, for example. It's more expensive than for Jakarta buyers because apart from having to rent a container as well as paying higher transportation costs, we also have to send five workers to assemble the house there," Marthen said.

All Minahasan traditional houses are made of three types of wood. The main support beams (six) are from iron wood, walls from cempaka (frangipani) wood and ceiling is made of nanthu wood. The roof of the house is made of iron sheets.

All three types of wood come from Kotamobagu, Bolaang Mangondouw regency, in North Sulawesi.

The builders are paid on a daily basis, ranging from Rp 40,000 for the chief carpenter and Rp 30,000 to Rp 35,000 for his assistants.

The small-scale businessmen in Woloan say they do not have a special marketing trick to sell the prefab traditional houses and simply rely on word of mouth for new customers.

"Usually, we offer foreign tourists visiting our village the finished product," said Marthen, who employs 24 villagers for his business. In a year, they can create 20 prefab houses.

Last year alone, three tourists from Argentina, Poland and the United States came ordered the houses from his place. Two months ago, two buyers from the West Java town of Bogor and Bontang in East Kalimantan also placed orders.

For the modern consumer, it seems the home can still be a traditional house in their own backyard, even if it comes from halfway across the world.