A Maine development company that championed tiny home building across the state has shuttered after 10 years in operation.
Tiny Homes of Maine closed abruptly last month less than two years after it was purchased by Casco-based Hancock Lumber.
Corinne Watson, Tiny Homes of Maine founder, confirmed in an email that Hancock had decided to close the business “indefinitely.”
Information about the closure has been scarce publicly, despite the company’s status as one of the major players in Maine’s tiny home industry.
The development company’s online and social media presence has disappeared. A line on Hancock’s website simply says that as of May 2026, the lumber company “has discontinued the tiny homes on wheels product line” but does not provide any additional information.
Hancock Lumber officials did not respond to multiple requests to discuss the closure.
Tiny homes, big business
Watson and her husband, Tom Small, started the business in Windham in 2015.
Tiny Homes of Maine was instrumental in passing tiny home legislation in Maine, first securing a legal definition (on a frame or chassis, under 400 square feet) in 2020 and then legalizing them in every Maine municipality the following year.
When they first started, the pair both worked as engineers — Watson at IDEXX and Small at Aero Ventilation and Heating. Tiny Homes of Maine started as a creative outlet for Watson, who said she was not enjoying climbing the corporate ladder. She landed on tiny homes as a way to combine her need for creativity with her “growing frustration with homelessness.”
“I strongly have the opinion that everyone deserves a home,” she said last summer in a podcast hosted by the Maine Real Estate and Development Association.
The company started gaining traction, and Watson and Small moved Tiny Homes of Maine to Houlton in 2018, and then followed as a family in 2020.
The business took off during the pandemic, and by 2022, they had a two-year waiting list for over 70 homes, according to reporting from the Bangor Daily News.
The company quickly outgrew the WWII-era hangar and had plans to move to a 12,000 square-foot facility at the Houlton Industrial Park.
But before they could move their manufacturing, the hangar burned down in September 2023 and Watson and Small “lost just about everything,” Watson said in a social media post at the time. The company moved to nearby Dyer Brook, where it stayed until the company closed last month.
Hancock partnership
After the fire, Kevin Hancock, executive chairman of Hancock Lumber, reached out to Watson to see how he could help, Watson said on the MEREDA podcast.
The two got talking about their shared passions for housing and affordability. They decided to forge a partnership.
“We just came to believe that together we could make it more than either one of us could do separately,” Hancock said on the podcast last June. Tiny homes, he said, could really “play a meaningful role in the future of housing in Maine.”
The two companies announced the acquisition in October 2024.
“Together the teams will be able to leverage Hancock Lumber’s buying power, network of lumberyards and customers, and manufacturing expertise to scale and grow the business while honoring Tiny Homes of Maine’s mission to make the tiny home dream attainable for more individuals,” Hancock Lumber said in a press release.
Hancock was getting ready to roll out tiny homes to its broader customer base and put a model home on its Saco lumberyard.
“We don’t know where that’s going to take us,” he said on the podcast.
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Hannah LaClaire can be reached at hlaclaire@pressherald.com.