by Cheyenne Morrison – Australia

In my travels through Bali and Java I would often see antique Javanese JOGLO houses for sale. They were actually designed and built to be able to be dismantled and moved easily.

The images attached I took at an antiques store in Ubud in Bali.The price they had on this one was approximately $8,000 USD, but if you shop around you can buy even larger ones for less.

These fabulous antique traditional bungalows, also known as Joglo, Limasan, and Gladeck, depending on their style, make the perfect guest houses for mild climates, either for private use or in hotel settings. They are very limited and not easy to find in the USA.

These one-of-a-kind traditional Javanese houses are usually at least 100 years old and made from durable maintenance free teak wood, featuring beautifully carved details and elevated floors. Gathered from remote villages throughout Indonesia.

Sizes vary:

Gladeck: 172 sqf – 450 sqf (16 sqm – 42 sqm)

Limasan & Joglo: 1000 sqf – 1500 sqf (93 sqm – 140 sqm)

Unlike modern structures pounded and fixed together with nails, brackets and toxic adhesives, joglos are fit together like giant puzzles; you won’t find a single nail or screw in the entire building. The joglo was originally a four-sided structure enclosed by dozens of three-by-one metre panels.

Small Gladeck houses take about a week to renovate, while the large Limasan and Joglos can take up to a month. The houses are then disassembled for shipment. An assembly instruction diagram is included, but a professional carpenter is required for installation. The foundation for the small houses can be created by putting it on stilts (4 round pillars).

Also there are loads of producers in Bali and Java who sell new ones in kit form, which are very cheap and can be shipped to the USA. Even with the shipping it’s cheaper to buy one of the beautiful hand-made solid teak homes, than to build one in the US. Here are some links to producers.







