The new domesteaders

Round homes are more than simple shelter for some true believers

(Lifestyles, August 1, 1999)

By David Hunn
Daily News Reporter

One house stands apart from the rest.

No angular roof creases the sky. No walls converge in sharp corners.

Instead, a dome sprouts from the soft earth. Doors and windows seem glued on as an afterthought. Wrinkles and seams mar a dirty white tarp that replaces the shingles, paint and stucco of a typical house.

It sits on a Chugiak parcel like the bulging top of a huge turnip or a gigantic golf ball buried in the dirt.

Some people say it's ugly, even overkill. Others, prizing its attributes, don't mind the strange shape.

Builders of the monolithic dome tout it as earthquake-proof, fireproof and energy-efficient. They say bombs bounce off the shell.

With claims like that, Soldotna's War Bonnet Construction Co. gets several calls a week from prospective buyers in places as far away as Florida and Africa. But owner Ray Ansel is sticking with Alaska. He's built 50 domes here in less than eight years.

Ansel is more than a builder. Long, wide sideburns and cowboy boots hint of his Texas upbringing. He's got the smile of a salesman, wide and excited; his handshake is firm. Slate-blue eyes light up with the fervor of a preacher.

God has directed him, Ansel said.

''We started Trinity Christian Center because we just felt like God called us into this area to do something here in Alaska,'' he said.

As pastor for the Soldotna church, Ansel fears that the ''seven years of great tribulation'' will arrive soon.

''From my study of the Bible, it is not going to be the end of the world,'' Ansel said, ''but it could be a time of sorrows, a time of troubles. If difficult times come, I hope I can be an instrument to help save lives.''

Callers inquiring about domes are fearful as well. They expect these round shelters to protect them from massive natural destruction, biblical apocalypse and computer-generated panic. But most just fret over cold winters, downed power lines and large heating bills.

Alaskans are a self-reliant, independent lot. It's no wonder that one of the world's strangest home designs, after 20 years of virtual anonymity in the Lower 48, now entices Alaskans.

''In Alaska, people are more open -- you've got more of a frontier spirit,'' Ansel said.

BUILDING A MUSHROOM HOME

Chuck Snyder thinks humans were foolish to leave caves and start building above ground. Too much weather out there.

But his dome in Kasilof does just fine.

With his wife, Louise, he anticipated its completion. They watched every step of the building process.

They watched Ansel, Alaska's sole builder of monolithic domes, as he bolted a huge, billowing tarp to a circular concrete base. They watched a high-powered fan fill the tarp with air, inflating it into a half-sphere the size of a house.

Inside, Ansel and his workers sprayed the tarp with 3 inches of polyurethane foam insulation. They attached rebar to the insulation horizontally and vertically, creating a bird cage of steel bars.

The hard work was still to come.

Schooled by the process's creator in Texas, Ansel had learned how to spray concrete up onto the dry foam, covering the rebar and creating the inside walls of the home -- a messy job.

''You're in raincoats, face masks and rain gear because it's just blowing all over you,'' Ansel said. ''It's coming down on your head and everything.

Especially when you're blowing these rocks, these pea-gravel rocks.

''It gets pitch-black dark,'' he said. ''You break the lights spray too much, globs start falling off your ceiling.''

Now that the concrete's dry and the home's finished, the Snyders are happy with it. It's a bright pastel green and bubbles out of the ground like a mushroom.

They feel protected from Alaska disasters in their house of concrete and steel. Prepared for hardship. Their dome is a sanctuary from the woes of the world.

Inside, they have piled an armory against disaster. Their cupboards bulge with extra food, in cans and boxes and crates and jars. Bottles and bottles of medicines and vitamins line Louise Snyder's closet.

Outside, a small nook stores a backup generator.

Inside, a wood stove stands ready in case the generator fails.

HOUSING FOR END TIMES

The Snyders expect their dome to protect them from forest fires, cold winters and year-2000 panic.

Others hope for more. They boast of the ultimate shelter, one that protects against warfare: gunfire and bombs and nuclear weapons.

Reuben Henderson, who works as a mechanic in Nikiski, asked Ansel to build him a cozy, 24-foot-diameter dome. And he had special instructions. He wants to bury his.

He says an underground dome will conserve even more energy. He likes feeling self-reliant. He practices survivalist hunting and fishing.

He told Ansel a civil war may be approaching, or something like it. The Bible told him so.

''Something's gonna happen,'' he said. ''I'll leave it up to the Lord.''

The Rev. Jim Bakker, sentenced to prison in 1989 for fraud, visited Ansel and his Trinity Christian Center church (a dome, of course) in 1998. His thinking mirrored Ansel's: Bakker believes the Bible predicts disaster, and the Y2K hubbub may be the catalyst.

When chaos breaks out, be it natural disaster or civil disorder, believers in monolithic domes say they'll withstand it all.

OVERBUILDING

Jon Kumin, principal architect and owner of the Anchorage firm Kumin Associates, recognizes that domes are architecturally strong. But he wonders if all that strength is really necessary.

''Why put resources into making something that could have the comet Kohoutek land on its roof?''

Ed and Nikki Pearson weren't motivated to buy their 24-foot dome as disaster protection. They're not predicting earthquakes, nor do they seem to worry about fires more than anyone else.

But they watched a tree fall on their dome. A big spruce, about a foot and a half in diameter. Ed Pearson said his heart leapt out of his chest. Nikki Pearson thought, ''There goes the house.''

The tree didn't scratch the dome. Didn't dent it. No cracks. Nothing.

But the burly structure that attracts some people also pushes many away. To some, a dome belongs on Luke Skywalker's Tatooine home, and that's about it.

''They're ugly,'' said Leslie Ansel, Ray Ansel's daughter-in-law. ''I don't care how much you save on electricity. If a big wave comes and knocks my house over, I guess it's my day to go.''

Kumin concurs.

''I think most people would think it's not the most beautiful building,'' he said.

But he doesn't mind them. He likes having houses of different styles in Alaska. But he criticizes them for not having enough windows. Openings would sacrifice their structural integrity, he said.

Ansel says the domes can be as stifling or airy as customers want them to be. Fill them with windows, he says. They can handle glass covering up to 50 percent of their surface area, though windows decrease their energy-efficiency.

A WINTER SHELTER

Just like the fur on a bear or the fat on a walrus, monolithic domes have insulation on the outside. Concrete coats the inside. They are so energy efficient, owners say, that a single human body can keep an entire house warm.

The Snyders know what it's like. Last winter they ran out of heating oil without realizing it.

Two full days after the oil ran out, Louise noticed that the floor, usually warmed by hot water circulating underneath, had cooled. She noticed that tap water wasn't hot anymore.

She told her husband, but he didn't believe her. It was too warm inside; outside, temperatures dropped as low as minus 46 degrees, Louise said. Sure enough, they had burned all their oil. It took two more days to get a refill.

In total, the Snyders went four days without heat, and the house temperature never dipped below a balmy 70 degrees, they said.

Almost every dome owner on the Kenai Peninsula has a similar story. Heating bills cut in half. Stove pilot lights overheating homes.

Percy Agloinga has heard stories of single candles warming smaller domes, even in the dead of winter. He likes that.

Agloinga, an Inupiaq Eskimo in the village of White Mountain, is tired of living in a home more than 100 years old, said his brother-in-law, Jep Hansen. Agloinga is tired of being cold when the village runs out of fuel to power its generator. He's tired of living in a home he can't insulate.

So Hansen, who has two domes, is helping Agloinga get his own.

Agloinga is gathering money to buy two 24-foot domes at roughly $33,000 each. Ansel already is building them in Soldotna. Then he'll barge them to Nome. It costs too much to build them there.

That's the beauty of smaller domes: They're portable.

After they arrive in Nome, Ansel will arrange for the 10- to 15-ton domes to be boated up Fish River to White Mountain. Fully loaded -- refrigerators, carpeting and all. He hopes to do business with other Bush residents, sending both full-size homes and smaller fish-camp shelters all over Alaska.

''I'm just so enthused in these igloos up here,'' Hansen said. ''This is what they need.''

SUNDAY'S COMING

Ansel loves the idea that his domes help people live better lives.

In fact, the whole idea came about as a service to the people of his church.

He was praying when it came to him.

''I decided to build a place where people could pray,'' Ansel said. He called it a ''prayer village.''

He built the first few ''igloos'' by hand, cutting each square foot of foam and gluing them together, then trowling on the cement.

It wasn't until he met Texas builder David South in 1990 that he learned a better method of building domes -- with a balloon tarp and high-pressure concrete sprayers.

Times were tough at first. He had much equipment to buy -- about $100,000 in cement mixers, air forms, fans and pumps.

But now life is getting easier. In 1996, after finishing his first dome house, he realized he might be able to make a living building them. With the help of his wife and four children, Ansel swept up more than $1 million in sales last year at War Bonnet, and he has higher goals for this year. And he still has time to preach on Sunday.

The demand for domes continues to grow.

''People had to touch and see and feel them up here in Alaska,'' Ansel said.

''I've been trying to sell the gospel for a long time. Domes are simple compared to that, it seems.''

This year, Ansel is pushing for more homes on the Peninsula, a Ketchikan resort and a Kenai hotel and convention center complete with hockey rink and indoor pool. Kenai Mayor John Williams says he's interested.

''I haven't put a whole lot of money in the bank yet,'' Ansel said. ''But Sunday's coming.''

internships front page | reporting internships | adn.com front page

© Anchorage Daily News