The summer of 1973 Bob and I started the remodel of an old farmhouse on a small acreage in Larimer County, Colorado, our dream come true. Influenced and enthused by our reading material that included Handmade Houses,bu Art Boericke/ Mother Earth News, Shelter, and Peter Rabitt's Drop City Dome book, we decided to build a large addition to the farmhouse in the form of a 5/8, three frequency geodesic dome attached to the story-and-half, sixty-year-old house.
Before we got too far into the project we opted to take a driving vacation with our 5-year-old son, Patrick, to southern Colorado and into New Mexico. We visited Drop City, already a ghost town near Trinidad, Colorado, populated with abandoned domes made from triangles of steel chopped out of car tops, then welded together. We took some photos of those structures then continued our trip toward the west, our destination about sixty-five miles from Drop City, up into the mountains near Gardner, Colorado, where the former residents of Drop City were establishing a commune they named Libre. We only spent an afternoon there, mingling with the folks, asking a few questions, before heading back to the interstate and south into New Mexico.
We rented a motel room in Taos and visited the Taos Pueblo the next morning. We three loved that experience immensely and took many photos of the adobe structures built about a thousand years ago. I've written about that and will again.
But this story is about another unique housing development on the outskirts of Taos called Earthship. Bob probably read about it in the Denver Post for it garnered a lot of attention in 1970 and 1971 when the first house was started, the Beer Can House.
The day we drove up to the jobsite two men working there and were friendly but busy, so we took a few photographs and left them to their project.
It inspired us to consider used construction materials and methods in our own house building project, which we did.
It kept our costs down and added character and fun memories to every aspect.
I found this story about Earthship and its founder, architect Mike Reynolds, and am happy to know it didn't turn to dust like Drop City. In fact, they have a few rentals now so tourists can experience living in an Earthship in Taos, New Mexico!
https://share.google/UknMl8mS9sDerT7X7
Bob thought this form of construction was similar to adobe but with a different inner core. I've read that others tried it with aluminum cans. I wonder how well this beer can house held up to wind and weather.
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