A One-of-a-Kind Property
- This property is on twenty secluded acres on a rarely-traveled private road with no visible nearby neighbors, beautiful views and adjacent to thousands of undeveloped acres with abundant wildlife. We originally created this website to explain the property to others to offer it for sale but later decided not to sell. Now the website is for our friends, family, and any interested parties.
- Designed by us, then fully engineered by Chris S Zweifel, P.E., S.E., and completed in 2008, two adjacent earth-sheltered two-story elongated shotcrete domes (each having a kitchen, bedrooms, and bathrooms), are interconnected by a twelve-foot wide, twenty-foot long tunnel that includes an extended kitchen, and two large, fully-shelved pantries.
- There is also a narrower back-door tunnel. It stays cooler all year round and is for food storage and the independent energy system’s lithium-ion batteries. Utility power is nearby if desired.
- Well-engineered and resistant to earthquakes, fire, freezing, and wind, these earth-sheltered structures, with argon-filled low emissivity glass windows, are very easy to heat in the winter and keep cool in the summer.
- Construction uses curved steel I beams, four layers of rebar, and shotcrete. The shotcrete is twelve inches thick at the base and four inches thick at the top. On top of the shotcrete are two inches of closed-cell polyurethane foam insulation, waterproofing, and a bell-shaped earth covering that is a minimum of two feet at the top and is much thicker down from there.
Earth-Sheltered Living, Powered by Solar and Wind
- Living with an independent power source means that when storms or accidents cause utility power outages our neighbors lose power—sometimes for many days—and we do not. With mindful power usage, we always have all the power we need with no utility bills. Our solar panels, upgraded in 2021, typically fully charge our batteries even on a cloudy day.
- Living earth-sheltered means that you hardly ever notice the effects of wind, cold, heat, and outside sounds.
- Inside temperatures are always comfortable and very stable. Once a target temperature is achieved very little heating or cooling is needed. There is no risk of inside pipes freezing.
- Living on ten acres, with no visible nearby neighbors and no traffic going by, next to thousands of acres of forested hills, often creates a quiet outdoor experience where the loudest sound you hear is the wind in the pines.
- 4,568 total square feet (based on floor drawings ignoring inner walls and stairs)
- 40-foot two-story elongated dome (2,487 square feet)
- 32-foot two-story elongated dome (1,750 square feet)
- Two tunnels (331 square feet total)
- A total of four bedrooms and five bathrooms.
- Note: Some walls are curved (cylindrical or spherical).
- Independent energy system (solar, wind, and propane), with a one thousand gallon buried propane tank
- 0.8 acre deer-fenced garden; yielding blueberries, grapes, and over ninety pounds of raspberries annually
- 20' x 30' insulated shop building with 120/240 VAC
- 16' x 16' earth-sheltered greenhouse (with 16' x 12' year-round garden area)
- 8' x 12' Hickory Sheds lofted-barn garden shed with 7' walls with two 4-foot deep lofts (built in 2020)
- 8' x 16' storage shed
- 8' x 14' storage shed
- Discretely located 40' x 7.3' semi-trailer with 8' walls; for storage, with built-in plywood shelves
- Pond fed by a seasonal creek
- Two wells with pure, great-tasting water, and a 3,000 gallon storage tank
- Private road shared by only two neighboring families
- Starlink with over 100 Mb/s internet.
- Large, wide, and colored concrete patio in front
- 16-foot freestanding motorized SunSetter awning with wireless wind sensor and two remotes, on patio
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