North of Lake Havasu City, construction crews are putting up a different kind of neighborhood: homes built around garages big enough to swallow a boat or an RV, with the living space stacked on top. The project, called Barn Caves, is the work of Paradyme Companies, and it broke ground in April 2025 on an 18-acre site near The Shops.
According to azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic, Barn Caves is designed to integrate oversized garages, separate living areas and recreation-oriented community amenities for residents who own boats, RVs and other large recreational equipment. The seed report describes the homes as three-story barndominium-style residences, each with a private elevator and an oversized garage, separating living areas from the ground-level garage and recreation space below. Paradyme says it places garage requirements at the very beginning of the design process, addressing dimensions, ceiling clearance, turning areas, security, ventilation, power and convenient access before anything else gets drawn.
How Many Homes, Exactly? Sources Disagree
Just how many houses will ultimately fill out the community remains an open question. Paradyme's own project materials, posted at paradymecompanies.com, describe a planned community of 93 contemporary barn-style residences. But coverage of the project's groundbreaking from havasunews.com puts the number at approximately 97 housing units, a figure that matches what the Lake Havasu City Council approved in March 2025 for the mixed-use project on Retail Centre Boulevard, per planning coverage from azbex.com.
The residential units are planned as detached single-family homes with two floors of living space above an RV-capable garage, with floor plans ranging from 2,200 to 3,300 square feet, azbex.com reports. That outlet also identifies Paradyme Companies as the developer and Selberg Associates Inc. as the design firm behind the project. Even the site's own address is in dispute: the letter of intent and project narrative list it as 40 Retail Centre Blvd., while council documents reportedly refer to 60 Retail Centre Blvd., according to the same azbex.com report.
A Garage-First Approach to Recreation Living
Ryan J. Garland, founder and chairman of Paradyme Companies, began examining the Lake Havasu market as an investor and developer in 2020, per the seed report from azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic. Garland has said that outdoor recreation and large recreational assets are simply part of daily life for the kind of buyer Barn Caves is built for, and the company's design approach reflects that — Paradyme considers heat, sun exposure, seasonal occupancy, energy consumption, shade, exterior materials and indoor-outdoor transitions as part of building for Arizona's climate, according to the seed report.
That recreation-first philosophy extends to what residents can expect to do with their garages once they move in. Barn Caves plans to accommodate boat or recreational vehicle storage, vehicle collections, workshops and entertainment space, the seed report states. Each planned residence pairs two stories of residential space with a ground-floor garage sized for recreational equipment, according to a company release distributed through newsfilecorp.com.
Wellness Club Size Also Up for Debate
Amenities are a centerpiece of the pitch, but like the home count, the numbers describing them shift depending on the source. Paradyme's own project page lists a 43,000-square-foot health and fitness club as part of the community, along with a pool and pickleball courts. The newsfilecorp.com release, however, describes a members-only wellness facility exceeding 30,000 square feet, also featuring a resort-inspired pool and pickleball courts. Havasunews.com separately reported that the development will add spacious garages, luxury townhomes and various recreational amenities, and that city planners backed a publicly accessible fitness facility with a pool as part of their approval.
The development sits adjacent to Paradyme's 225,000-square-foot luxury boat and RV storage facility, Paradyme Storage Havasu, according to the newsfilecorp.com release. That storage facility encompasses roughly 225,000 square feet across 208 units, per the company's own site, and it serves owners of boats, RVs, other vehicles and recreational equipment with large-format storage and recreational space — a sister property to the housing going up next door.
Lake Havasu as the Testing Ground for a Bigger Rollout
Paradyme isn't treating Lake Havasu City as a one-off. The company is expanding the Barn Caves concept into additional U.S. markets, using its Lake Havasu City community — still under construction — as the prototype, according to the newsfilecorp.com release. Paradyme has named the Ozarks region and the Nashville market, along with other Sun Belt and lake-community markets, as areas it's evaluating for future Barn Caves projects.
To make that model portable, Paradyme has moved toward prefabricated construction, standardized logistics, a general contractor training program and solar energy, per the same release. Project materials describe Lake Havasu City itself as a destination market centered around boating, water sports, off-road recreation and seasonal residents — the kind of built-in audience Paradyme is betting will follow the Barn Caves formula to its next location.
Locally, the seed report notes that Paradyme's approach includes local entrepreneurs in its development strategy and focuses on construction and operating jobs, local vendor and business relationships, useful services and property maintenance. The company currently has projects in Lake Havasu City that include both large-format recreational storage and the planned residential properties now taking shape north of town. Ryan J. Garland is listed as the company's media contact, according to the seed report from azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic.
