‘Bestie Row’ is a collection of Texas tiny homes built by four couples who have been friends for decades. Now they’re sharing their riverside idyll – making it available to rent via Homeaway.

The couples built the cluster of cabins on the banks of Llano river as a retreat from the pressures of city life. Also dubbed the Llano Exit Strategy, the tiny homes sit on a 10-acre stretch of arid landscape about an hour and a half’s drive from Austin.

Fred and Jodi Zipp – one of the couples – enlisted local architect Matt Garcia to design the huts after he created their home in Austin. He took cues for the 350 sq ft structures from the work of local architect Ted Flato (Texas’ master of modular buildings) and scenes from his own childhood in the region.

Each of the Bestie Row holiday homes cost about $40,000 to build. They come clad in corrugated metal, echoing Texan barns, and are capped by cantilevered ‘butterfly’ roofs that capture rainwater, channelling it into cisterns that irrigate the compound.

To boost energy efficiency, cabins are insulated by heavy-duty spray foam, keeping out searing summer temperatures and winter frost. Interior walls are made from plywood.

‘We just wanted something warm feeling that would offset the coolness of the metal on the outside,’ Garcia told Garden & Gun.

Bestie Row’s cabins all have a queen-sized bed, while three also have a double sofa bed. To accommodate extra guests, there’s a bunk room that sleeps up to six.

The friends went big on the common space: a 1,500 sq ft area where they can gather, cook and entertain (‘Jodi makes a mean pork and hominy posole,’ according to Garden & Gun). It’s kitted out with a commercial-style range and giant refrigerator.

Bestie Row can be rented out when the friends are away, but only in its entirety (starting from $1,200 per night). So if you want to sample the simple life, enlist up to 20 of your pals to join you.

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