About

TeamHistoryContact

About Us

An intentional company begins with obsessive attention to detail and uncompromising quality.

New Frontier Design is an award winning company the designs and builds tiny homes on wheels, and offers Architectural and Interior Design services for site built homes of any size. Our work has been featured on HGTV, Good Morning America, Disney and in top publications such as Architectural Digest, Dwell Magazine, and dozens of others. We work anywhere in the United States. We love our clients, and we define our success solely based on their complete satisfaction with their projects!

We are based in Nashville, TN but we work with clients all over the U.S.
Most of our clients are out West, and we travel to almost anywhere in the country for our projects.

David Latimer

Founder, CEO

Everything at New Frontier Design begins and ends with David. From the Vision, to the Brand, to Architectural Design, Interior Design, and Decoration/Staging: it all starts in his head and doesn't come to life without him driving it, every step of the way. And for the first 4.5 years of the company, he oversaw all production and project management as well. (We began outsourcing all tiny house production in 2019). Design is his first love, and he is completely self-taught. An obsessive perfectionist who never compromises the quality or beauty of any product, he is deeply passionate about all the different components of New Frontier.

Born and raised in Nashville, TN, David has always been fascinated by the form and function of structures and spaces, beautiful and functional and innovative design, and intentional living. He has also always been an avid lover of Nature, and spends as much time adventuring through different climates, different types of wilderness, though his greatest love is the mountains. He got his start in construction by working as a framer during summers in high school, and it was there that he gained the fundamental knowledge of what has become a lifelong passion for building, carpentry, the art and science of designing and crafting a home, all with a Do-It-Yourself ethos. Autonomy and self-reliance are two of his guiding principles. He studied Literature and Philosophy at Furman University and paid for his education with an athletic scholarship. Seeking a life of exciting and new experiences over any single career path, David backpacked on a shoestring budget through Europe for 8 months after graduating from university.

Next he moved to New York City where his passion for design began to materialize in the strange world of fashion. He worked for Ralph Lauren (RRL), starting out in retail and then moving into interiors, visual merchandising, window displays, etc. He moved on to concept design for Earnest Sewn. After 3 years, he was burnt out on city life and the fashion industry and wanted a completely different experience. An opportunity to help build and expand an orphanage in the village of Mutungu, Uganda became his next mission. After almost a year in Africa, he moved to Chicago for 6 years where he worked in a number of different industries: interior design, hospitality, personal training, and tech amongst others.

While in Chicago, he began to formalize his experience designing spaces. First he taught himself how to design and build furniture. This eventually led him to join a small design/build company, where his love for interior design became a job, a regular daily practice, helping to design and build some of the most popular restaurants, bars, and nightclubs in the city.  Eventually, a longing to return to the South to be near family and the Appalachians drew him back to Nashville. He made the move when an opportunity arose for him to help design and open a new restaurant/bar as the General Manager, Director of Ops, and a small equity partner. Though it began with tremendous potential, the situation quickly turned into a massive disappointment, which led to a season of deep introspection.

David began re-evaluating his life, re-establishing his values and principles, and cataloging the disparity between his intentions and actions. He thought deeply about what type of career he wanted, something that he was very passionate about and actually enjoyed doing in the day to day grind. The principles of Mindfulness, self-reliance, self-awareness, debt-free living, sustainability, community, and intentional living became the driver of his habits and behavior. Through much difficult inner work, he began to reshape his life so that the most important components were brought to the forefront of daily living instead of being relegated to free time.

During this time in 2014, he realized he was ready to dive head first into becoming a full-time designer. But he wanted more than just that. He wanted to do work that he believed in ethically and philosophically. Serendipitously, right as all this was happening, his father Eddie introduced him to the tiny home movement. He immediately fell in love and saw tiny homes as a confluence of his many passions.

The philosophy behind the tiny house movement (creating Affordable and Attainable Housing, making great quality design and craftsmanship accessible to many people, intentional living, reconnecting to Nature, a facilitating a life of experience, instead of the acquisition of "stuff," creating community, etc.) drew him in and inspired him to devote his working hours to furthering its cause. David has chosen to translate that philosophy and his own into New Frontier Design. After 4.5 years of building all the homes in-house, he'd learned all he had needed to know about how to build some of the highest-quality tiny homes in the world. He was ready to move on from spending much of his time project managing construction, and return to his first passion: Design. In 2019, he expanded his New Frontier’s services to include Architectural and Interior Design to any size, site built home or business. He now offers architectural and interior design for homes of all sizes all over the country, in addition to designing and selling his tiny home models both domestically and internationally.

Taylor Mallon

Architectural Designer and Consultant

Taylor attended The University of Kansas where he graduated with his Masters of Architecture. Taylor practiced architecture in Kansas for three years before to moving to Nashville to explore a career in construction management.

Taylor is a very talented and knowledgeable designer and builder. He has taught David much of what he knows about the intricacies of architecture, design, and construction. He intimately understands the components of architecture and how to actually bring ideas to life and build homes (unlike many architects out there). In the early years of the company, Taylor worked closely with David to help bring his visions and ideas to life and turn them into buildable structures. He is a great human, talented professional, and has been an integral part of the development of David and New Frontier as a company.

Company History

2015

It Begins...

New Frontier Design was originally New Frontier Tiny Homes. It began with David Latimer and his father Eddie. Eddie made all of this possible, introducing David to the tiny house concept as a solution for Affordable Housing in Nashville TN (Eddie is the founder and owner of Affordable Housing Resources, Nashville’s oldest AH nonprofit). He financed the construction of 2 tiny homes based on plans from another company to learn about the process and the market before creating their own original designs.

2016

HGTV and The Alpha is Born

David soon met Zac Thomas, who was fundamental in the upward trajectory of the company. He would later invest and bring 10 years of invaluable production building experience to the table. A rare opportunity to be featured on HGTV presented itself, and in short order, David and Zac created the Alpha Tiny Home. While the intentions were not to create a luxury home, the excitement about the TV opportunity inspired David and Zac to design and build the best tiny home they’d ever seen. 

The Alpha launched New Frontier into immediate popularity and brought acclaim from all over the world. It was featured on HGTV, Good Morning America, Disney, The Today Show, CNN, etc and was featured in Architectural Digest and Dwell, amongst dozens of other publications. We were very lucky, and at the right place at the right time.

During this time, David worked at the Entrepreneur Center in Nashville and fortuitously bumped into a to-be mentor, Stryker Warren, a guiding light to the company’s formation and early growth.

David and a small team of friends built the first couple of orders, but as demand grew, so did the need to hire a full team and find a proper production facility.

2017

Expansion and a Full Court Press

The year began in a new home with a new full time team of very talented builders and craftsman. Shortly thereafter, we created our second original design: the Escher Tiny Home. This design/build also presented another HGTV opportunity. More features by Dwell and Architectural Digest.

We collaborated with Disney to build a new home for victims of the California wild fires. We presented it to them live on Good Morning America in Oculus plaza at the new World Trade Center in NYC.

2018

New Models, New Innovations and Olivia Wilde in New York City

We released the Cornelia and the Orchid tiny homes. Due to our packed schedule, we turned down other HGTV opportunities to focus on scaling and designing new models. 

We collaborated with Olivia Wilde and Dunkin’ to create a completely off-grid home that runs off of a coffee bean biofuel. The Home that Runs on Dunkin’ was featured at a public event created specifically for the project in Madison Square Park in NYC.

The company continued to grow in popularity, reputation as one of the highest design and quality tiny home builders in the world, and in demand.

2019

Operationalizing Growth

With some wind in our sails, we looked to build our operations and sales teams to keep up with demand from all angles; retail customers, consumers, developers, and Airbnb entrepreneurs. Building everything in house for the first 4.5 years was an incredible and necessary learning experience.

But David’s first love and passion is design, and he was ready for a change from spending most of his time managing the construction of the homes. So for this reason, and in an attempt to scale, we began to outsource production.

It was during this time that we began working with Liberation Tiny Homes. They are exceptionally talented builders and incredible humans. And they began building our homes, and to this day still do! Because of Liberation our company was able to change dramatically.

2020

Demand Explodes + Architectural + Interior Design + The Luna Tiny Home

COVID hits, and to our great surprise demand exploded. People began to want to escape city life and get out into Nature. One of David’s great passions is Nature and to help people reconnect to Nature. One of his guiding design principles is to eliminate the boundaries between indoor and outdoor space. And many of our new clients wanted exactly this.

We expand to offer Architectural and Interior Design for all size site-built homes. The trajectory of the company starts to change rapidly.

The Luna Tiny Home is released, our most attainable and budget conscious model yet. It is received with great excitement and demand and acclaim.We add Movable Roots as one of our tiny home builders. Excellent people, excellent quality, excellent product.

Zac and David amicably part ways and David becomes the sole owner of New Frontier. They are still good friends! :)

2021 + 2022

Rebrand and Refocus: New Frontier Design

With our expansion into architecture and interior design and our focus now purely on design, it was time for a rebrand. So, we decided to rename the company New Frontier Design to make clear what our priority is: creating the most unique, original, and beautiful design for all types of spaces and projects and needs.

Several large projects out West caused us to spend more time with clients, overseeing the work.

We begin working with M Royce Architecture and a new partnership is formed.

Our focus further shifts towards experiential, deep Nature hospitality.

Into the Future

Stay Tuned...

We’ve got some exciting stuff in the works!

Our Locations

Nashville
444 Elmington Ave
Nashville, TN 37205

Los Angeles
4100 W Alameda Ave
Suite 333-02
Burbank, CA 91505

Inquire about the Enterprise Design and Homes