UNDERGROUND HOMES

The Magic Mushroom House in Aspen, Colorado. Nice living room and fireplace. The 6,000 square foot house has no corners.

Earth-cooled, shipping container underground CA home for 30K

The Underground Town of Coober Pedy, South Australia

Miners began to move to Coober Pedy when opal was found in 1915.  Coober Pedy has over 70 opal fields and is the largest opal mining area in the world, supplying most of the world’s gem-quality opal.

The scorching desert temperatures meant that many residents preferred to live in caves bored into the hillsides (dugouts), which are much cooler and maintain a relatively stable temperature.  There are many people who live above-ground, but most of the town’s 1,916 residents continue to build and live underground. Nowadays, a standard three-bedroom cave home with lounge, kitchen, and bathroom can be excavated out of the rock in the hillside for a similar price to building a house on the surface. 

Approximately 60% of the people are of European descent, migrating from southern and eastern Europe after the Second World War. In all, there are more than 45 nationalities represented, along with indigenous Australians.

Coober Pedy today relies as much on tourism as the opal mining industry to provide the community with employment and sustainability.  The town has 10 motels and hotels.  Eight are underground.  There are also several churches of various denominations.

Outdoor activities include horse and dirt bike racing, backpacking, and golf. Yep, golf.  The 18-hole golf course is grassless and par 72.

In the mine fields, it’s recommended not to walk backwards, not to run, and not to fall into mine shafts.  Duh

MY DREAM HOME!

I’ve always been torn between owning a “sphere house” or some kind of underground house/converted silo.  Recently I came across this converted missile silo in NY’s Adirondack mountains for $750k (or $1.8million for the house and all the land around it.)  It’s perfect!

Real privacy (no annoying neighbors)

Underground climate control 70 degrees year round.

The property comes with an air strip… which I could use as my own personal drag strip!

It’s a missile silo, so you know it’s safe in the event of natural disasters, nuclear attack, 2012.

Zombie apocalypse?  No problem!

Setenil de las Bodegas, Spain

Setenil de las Bodegas is one of the white towns of Andalusia (pueblo blancos) situated in the province of Cádiz. Setenil is famous for its dwellings built into rock overhangs above the Rio Trejo.

“Tradition holds that the town’s Castilian name came from the Roman Latin phrase septem nihil (‘seven times nothing’). This is said to refer to the Moorish town’s resistance to Christian assault, allegedly being captured only after seven sieges. This took place in the final years of the Christian Reconquest. Besieged unsuccessfully in 1407, Setenil finally fell in 1484 when Christian forces expelled the Moorish occupants.

The full name of Setenil de las Bodegas dates from the 15th century, when new Christian settlers, in addition to maintaining the Arab olive and almond groves, introduced vineyards. The first two crops still flourish in the district but the once flourishing wineries (bodegas) were wiped out by the phylloxera insect infestation of the 1860s, which effectively destroyed most European vine stocks.”

Photos from: Around the World

Cave house with sea views