Retro home ready:

COSTA MESA — It looks like an image out of 1950s suburbia: a compact, freshly painted house surrounded by a white picket fence, with even a tiny putting green on the lawn.

The only difference is that it’s not in the middle of a cozy neighborhood, but in a parking lot outside the local swap meet.

The Orange County Market Place, which for nearly four decades has sold clothing, music, produce and just about everything else, made its first venture into housing at the end of March. A three-bedroom, two-bathroom manufactured home now sits in the parking lot on Fair Drive with a starting price of $125,995 — the only catch is that it’s up to the buyer to find a flat stretch of land on which to set it.

“This still provides the American dream of homeownership to a group of people who might not otherwise have that opportunity,” said Jeffrey Teller, the Orange County Market Place president.

Teller and his colleagues first floated the idea of selling a home at a brainstorming session early this year. After that, the process moved quickly. Silvercrest, a Corona-based company that builds portable homes, designed the house in less than five weeks, and the retailer 5 Star Homes put it up for sale.

The home is open for tours 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. To make it more eye-catching — and to give a plug to local artisans — Teller and his staff temporarily furnished the house with items from booths at the swap meet.

Barbara Smith, a Huntington Beach resident who visited the marketplace Thursday, said she wouldn’t mind owning the house, because she believed portable homes aided the environment.

“The question is: Is it green enough?” she said. “That’s the advantage to these modular houses. It’s so easy to manufacture them to be environmentally friendly.”

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected].