After two water oaks fell on Andrée McPherson’s Victorian cottage in downtown Covington during Hurricane Katrina, she had no idea where she would live or what to do with the smashed, 130-year-old house where she and her teenage daughter had spent the past 14 years.

It took her six months to make the emotionally wrenching decision to tear it down. But what she chose to replace it was unusual for her neighborhood: a 2,400-square-foot, two-story home that was delivered from Decatur, Ind., on the backs of four trucks and lifted into place by a crane.

“It is awesome,” she said. “It is just an incredible experience.”

McPherson, a financial assistant at a brokerage firm, is one of a number of storm-affected residents who have embraced modular housing, which is typically constructed inside remote factories and shipped to the homeowner’s property for assembly. In St. Tammany Parish, interest in such houses appears to be growing.

Modular homes are not widely popular in the parish, a resistance that some attribute to confusion about what the term means. “For a long time, many people considered them to be the same thing as a manufactured home, what we commonly refer to as a house trailer,” said Ben Kirk, spokesman for the St. Tammany Home Builders Association.

But unlike mobile homes, modular homes are comparable in quality to “stick-built” houses. They are typically constructed to comply with the local codes of their destination. Proponents say they undergo a more rigorous quality-control process than traditional houses and, unlike mobile homes, appreciate in value.

“They can be a real good thing,” Kirk said. “A lot of our builders have looked into them. The big advantage is, they’re fast.” Because they are built indoors, inclement weather doesn’t delay construction. Their assembly-line systems typically follow a stricter schedule, without the holdup of wayward subcontractors.

Kirk said local builders have found modular homes are not necessarily cheaper. “The big thing touted early on, that they were much less expensive, is not the case,” he said. For him, quality is a stronger selling point. He attended the International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 7-10, and he was “truly impressed” by some modular homes.

“Some are quite spectacular. They are, I think, a good product,” he said. However, local builders have found few customers in St. Tammany. “We have not seen as much interest in them over here as in New Orleans,” Kirk said.

In unincorporated St. Tammany, only 16 modular homes were erected in 2006, according to parish spokeswoman Suzanne Parsons-Stymiest. But in the first three months of this year, 15 permits have been issued. “Obviously, there’s growing interest on the part of the public,” she said.

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