A dugout home, a la
Laura Ingalls Wilder
When I was a kid, my dad read all of
Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books to me. I loved imagining life as a settler, and I was fascinated by the idea that for part of her life Laura lived in a house that they carved out of the ground. It seemed amazing to think that your walls, floor, and ceiling might all be made of dirt. As I was growing up in a very clean house I simply couldn't imagine my mother letting the walls be
made of dirt.
The Cave Home of Curt and Deborah Sleeper
In a recent slide show on extreme home make-overs, The
New York Times looked at several innovative approaches to making existing spaces into homes. Laura's dirt house came to mind when I saw Curt and Deborah Sleeper's Sandstone Cave Home in Festus, MO.
The Sleepers had been living in cramped quarters with their two children when an eBay property caught their eye. The three acres of land also featured an empty sandstone cave that was once a quarry. In the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder, a dugout home not only kept the family from all the elements, the earth that surround the home acted as a thermal layer for the home, keeping the space warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. The Sleepers realized their new land featured a cave that had the same benefits and with 15,000 feet of space, they decided to build into the cave.
Cave Kitchen
While I do love the idea of a home built into the ground that insulates itself, my childhood concerns about dirty walls hold true in the cave home. Because sandstone sheds, the Sleepers have had to place umbrellas throughout their home to keep important things sand-free (such as areas of the kitchen and the pool table).
The New York Times slide show not only features a cave home but also a deconsecrated 1792 English church turned home, a modern home built from shipping containers, and a 1905 German water tower converted to apartments and offices. If you are considering building a new home, perhaps you should look around to see what available resources you can dig up!
[Images, besides top image, by Lars Tunbjork for The New York Times]
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