Journey: 1975 The Hobbit House

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Cañon went on to become a compound that I lived in with three different wives and families at three different times of my life. Many things were learned there. The first tire house was built there. We call it the Hobbit House. At right is how it looks today. It was built with the help of students from my old architectural school – University of Cincinnati. New Mexico was very backward in those days and building permits were not seriously enforced. This really is the reason that so much was learned – because we were free… free to experiment. I have spent a lot of time since then trying to recreate that learning situation.

Today’s world simply does not allow learning…

thus we are not evolving fast enough to survive.

I built the first tire house as an experiment in tire and aluminum can construction. I was also trying to learn about solar gain through the use of a greenhouse and thermal mass (of the earth stuffed tires) for storing temperature. I was planning to let a poor “hippie chick” with three kids live in it as they seemed to really need a cheap place to rent. This was Gini Coleman and her three kids, Georgia, John and Spyder.

Well, Gini turned out to be the run away daughter of an oil millionaire from Texas.

I didn’t find this out until after I married her.

I built my now ex-wife Susan an FHA financed version of what I had learned about solar/thermal construction, only with fully conventional materials, and Gini and her kids ended up moving into the Cañon big house with me. This began another era of the Cañon compound.

One misty morning, Gini’s brother, George,

took a picture of the first tire house (at right) that brought me and Gini together for a time.

Sharon lived in the first tire house in the mid seventies. It came to be known as the “HOBBIT HOUSE”.
Thirty years and many “wars” later this method of construction evolved into fully independent/sustainable EARTHSHIPS in the Greater World Community/subdivision just north of Taos, New Mexico.
At right is the rear window of the Hobbit House peeking out of the buried north side grass. At left is the inside made of bottles and cans. Notice the door handle made of the top of a linseed oil can. Below is a newer version of this.
There is probably a regulation against this kind of door handle now.
From the north (rear) both the Hobbit House of thirty years ago and the EARTHSHIP of today, that evolved from it, look like extensions of the Earth itself. We can extend the Earth but we cannot replace it.
This guy and his brother, Dave came out to New Mexico from Cincinnati. They helped build some can walls and we all played music.
A stair railing made from bottles in the yard of the first building we called an Earthship. It was built in Cañon. I married my third wife Chris in Cañon. The day after the wedding, we went to the back of the property and started pounding dirt into tires for the building that became the first Earthship. I am sure she wondered just what kind of freak she married for those first few days.