New Generation Embraces Dome Life
Chatsworth real estate developer Steve Brown built his geodesic dome house a year ago--a spectacular double-dome model with 16 skylights tucked into the side of a mountain.
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He, his wife Julie, their three children, two dogs and a turtle had lived in a conventional one-story house in Van Nuys.
“We’d looked at domes for 10 years, and knew that was what we wanted,” Brown says.
“The dome was the only structure that afforded me the kind of openness I wanted on the inside. We have five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a kitchen, formal dining room, formal living room, a den and a three-car garage.
“I put all the bells and whistles on it. We have a 31-foot ceiling, like a cathedral. I can look up at night and see the stars and the view is incredible.”
Brown says most people have a misconception about domes, envisioning them as dark and cramped, like a cave or an igloo.
“When they see what I’ve done they are always pleasantly surprised. Domes are open and spacious and very economical--you don’t feel cramped up and you don’t get claustrophobic.
“I like to say it’s just like a conventional house, only round versus square.”
Brown is one of a growing group of enthusiasts in America’s do-it-yourself housing population. They’re discovering a new version of dome housing.
The spherical style made a modest splash in the ‘60s, when environmentalists heralded the strength and simplicity of engineer / futurist Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome--a network of intersecting triangles.
But with amateur carpenters patching together building scraps, the structures were often leaky and dark.
Today this niche industry (only a handful of U.S. manufacturers market geodesic domes) is recovering from a period of clumsy construction and financial problems.
“The 1960s is a period we would like to forget,” says Robert Casey, president of Domes America Inc., a Chicago-based company that has been building residential and commercial domes since 1975. Casey says this year is shaping up as one of the company’s best.
The sophisticated engineering and quality-controlled factory production methods for today’s domes make them the easiest house to build for the do-it-yourselfer.
But even that presents an image problem: The fact that domes come in a “kit” sounds trivial, says Robert M. Singer, president of Timberline Geodesics in Berkeley. “But we are a recognized form of building and have done domes in all 50 states, and around the world. Domes are used for everything from dance studios to churches, but the main role is residential.”
Timberline has designed a color-coded system of metal hubs and wood struts that Singer describes as “fitting together like a big Tinkertoy.”
“You build the framework on a conventional foundation,,” Singer says, “then put on the plywood outer skin. No part weighs more than 25 pounds. Everything is pre-cut and pre-drilled and, most important, the dome is completely self-supporting as you build it. You don’t have to bring in a crane.”
“More than 90% of our customers will assemble the dome themselves,” he adds. “It’s a blast to do. People with no building experience may hire a contractor to pour the foundation.”
Kit prices range from $6,000 to about $18,000 and the Timberline catalogue offers a variety of floor plans and such accessories as wrap-around decks, clusters of geometric skylights, cupolas and dormer windows to break up the look of a giant pod.
At the National Assn. of Home Builders, dome houses fall into the Panelized Council category along with log homes, says spokeswoman Barbara Martin. “That means the components are produced in a factory to conventional building codes and then assembled on a building site,” she says.
Panelized homes accounted for about 11% of housing starts nationwide last year, she says. “I think whenever the do-it-yourself phase comes into our lives, the interest in dome homes and log homes goes up. They do provide a way for the people to participate in the building process.” (The association provides a brochure and statistics on dome energy efficiency at (800) 368-5242, Ext. 162.)
Manufacturers acknowledge that in a world dominated by boxes, the dome house is not likely to take over.
“The people who live in domes are people who don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” Casey says. “We’re a society that doesn’t want to stand out and the Colonial two-story in the Midwest is what spells success.”
Still the number of dome dwellers is on the rise, especially among couples in their 20s and 30s, says Cynthia Kerstines, editor of the Denver-based Dome magazine. “There’s a new wave of interest among people who are concerned about saving the Earth. Once a dome is built, it is very economical to live in. With no ceiling to sit under, the air circulates by itself. And because it has less exterior area, it’s easier to heat and cool.”
Domes got another little boost when CBS’ Monday-night hit series “Northern Exposure” introduced a new character this season played by Anthony Edwards. As an attorney with environmental allergies, he moves to Cicely, Alaska, and lives in a dome, donning a bubble suit whenever he ventures outside.
The combination of energy efficiency and lower cost are the major forces cited by Futurist magazine in a recent article proclaiming “The Return of the Geodesic Dome.”
Then there is the aesthetic factor. Though a dome may look like an earth-tone golf ball from the outside, says Robert Singer, “The main reason people are going to live in a dome is that the interior is so pleasant. Since the dome doesn’t need internal supports or load-bearing walls, you have complete freedom to build the house of your dreams.”
Robert Casey agrees. “Once people move into a dome they tend not to move out. They just love them. That can be a disadvantage--you don’t have resales, which means you don’t have publicity.”
A sampling of interviews with dome owners verifies their boosterism:
* Alabama contractor John Johnson switched from building conventional houses to building domes after he first walked into one. “A friend had Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon” on the stereo and it was like being inside a sphere of music,” he says. “The more I looked at the strength and energy-saving characteristics, the more I was sold on them.”
He has built five for other customers and is building his own on a wooded ridge. “I have a 32-foot living-room ceiling with a third floor suspended from the top of the dome,” he says. “It’s a real interesting place to put a hot tub.”
* Marvin and Gerry Hrabe) of Torrance retired to rural Tollhouse, near Fresno, where they bought five acres in the Sierra foothills and built a three-bedroom, two-bath dome house. “We wanted a house we could build ourselves and since we are on a fixed income we wanted to save money,” she says. “This was one of the few houses that met both those qualifications.
* Doug and Vivian Meyer of Belmont, N.C., were house-hunting nine years ago and, out of curiosity, just “peeked in” the door of a vacant dome house.
“It had everything I wanted in a house,” says Doug Meyer. Located on a woodsy lot of oaks, dogwoods and maples, the house has an immense living room stretching to a 23-foot ceiling skylight. “It’s a great place to entertain,” Meyer says. “You never have the feeling of being cooped up or encapsulated in a room, like you do in a conventional house. “If you can get past the fact that it’s round, it’s the house for you.”
