Abandoned Geodesic Dome Renovated into Spacious Off Grid Home
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Sam Friedman is the owner of the Hawkeye House, a geodesic dome located on 110 acres.
He was the Co-Founder and CEO of a company called Park Me, that was started in 2009 and sold in 2016. Instead of starting another company, Sam came across this property through a friend, fell in love with it and bought it. Ever since he has been working and learning about construction and off-grid. He bought the whole property for $350K, which came with a run down structure that had been built in 1980 and been abandoned for around 10 years at this point. Before they got there, all the copper wire was stripped out, there was graffiti and no windows. Sam completely remodeled it and now it's a rental and also a place he visits quite often.
The Hawkeye is not a typical Dome – there are normal doors and windows and most segments are made up of five different triangles. The building has five sides and Sam built different doors on three of them, in order to keep it open and give the place an indoor/outdoor vibe. Outside stands a four ton air conditioner and out of the roof comes a chimney of the furnace that heats up the indoor space in winter: the high-desert has pretty extreme temperatures and sometimes it snows winter. Knowing how to heat and cool a place in that environment is very important.
The patio around the house is decorated with local plants and a Jacuzzi Sam build himself out of wood. Beside it is an outdoor fireplace for fresh nights with day beds close to it, covered by a shade structure. The dining area outside is built on a wood deck and there is just one small square on the patio ground where they did not put concrete in order to access the septic tank when needed.
Beside the dome they built a carport, which they had to build in order to get the certificate of occupancy. It turned out handy as Sam also uses it as an area to put his 5-6KW/h solar panels on top of. A little further, he also installed a ground mounted system of nine panels that stand in the perfect angle towards the sun. Behind the garage they set up the solar room, where the batteries are housed: two batteries of each 10KW/h, an outback power inverter for 8KW, three different charge controllers and right outside a 20KW generator that kicks on if the batteries are below certain voltage. The 500 gallon propane tank beside the solar room powers the generator and all the appliances that need gas.
When Sam bought the Dome, the inside was not a big open space yet. It used to be very walled off, had a closed second floor and many smaller rooms. With some help of a good friend, he designed all of the interior in a funky, desert and modern way. Most of the furniture is vintage and one low table is a mirrored surfboard put on cinder blocks - Sam comes from LA, where surfing is a big part of the culture. All the wood used for different purposes is birch, in order to keep it light.
In the open kitchen the steel-framed countertops are out of concrete. The appliances are specifically for off-grid, the company of the gas-run hearth is called Unique and very efficient. The water comes directly from a well that has very clean water which they still filter out. Even though Sam prefers large fridges, he installed two small ones in order to make sure they were under the power allotment.
Sam wanted to keep the bathroom very simple. There is no bathtub in order to save water as they are off-grid. The sink and shower are out of a very nice stucco concrete and there is a glass skylight window one can open up. Downstairs is one of the bedrooms they kept very simple, too: a platform bed, a couple of night stands, a dresser and that's it.
A spiral staircase, to save space, leads up into the loft.. The first thing one notices is the beautiful oak wood floors. There are a small hangout area and two beds: one platform bed and another bed in a very comfortable and unique kind of window-nook. One of the things they did keep in the Hawkeye was the skylight, putting a nice birch woodwork around it. As it can let a lot of heat in in summer, the windows are double paned with a low E coating on them. And last but not least: a small glass-door in the lofts lead out onto a nice, small balcony out of ipe wood.
Sam says that the main struggle with being off-grid is the power. Only quite recently did the technologies allow an efficient and cost-effective power usage. Even though it takes a lot of work to look into this matter and learn about these things on your own, you then get to live in land where otherwise it might not be possible. His main advice: “Try to be dispassionate about your beliefs. When you're going down a path or a design, and something changes that you didn't expect, you're not so caught up in it and realize that the process is the most important and not the end goal - as cliché as that may sound.”
