Perched on more than 5 acres, the dome house at 435 Tune Drive almost blends into its New Mexico mesa. Rounded with a textured stucco exterior shell, the structure could be another bump in the desert region, except for one detail: The dome is a ruddy pink.
“It’s not your everyday structure,” explained Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices broker Ryan Trujillo. “I think it’s a good display of what Taos is: eclectic and outlandish.”
Custom built in 1980, the two-story dome spans about 3,148 square feet in El Prado, about 2 miles from Taos. Now the home is on the market for almost $1.6 million, co-listed by Trujillo and agent Page Sullivan.
The interior is inspired by rainforests and deserts
Rather than the angular geodesic domes popularized by architect Buckminster Fuller, this residence is more of a monolithic dome. The half-moon structure boasts a shell-like exterior, often formed by massing material over an inflated dome below.
From New Mexico’s Earthship architecture movement to a historic local vernacular of curving adobe structures, the dome is in good, unique-architecture company, the agent said. Still, it’s not quite an earthship home, which prioritizes repurposed building materials and sustainable building techniques, and it’s not entirely an adobe-built home, the agent noted; the dome is its own thing.
Inside, the residence has a decorative scheme inspired by both the New Mexico desert and Costa Rican rainforest. In the main living area, that means the 35-foot-tall ceilings are covered in a blue-and-white cloud mural that arches above Travertine floors. Preserved cedar trunks hung with carved monkeys and toucans punctuate the space like columns, and a trompe-l’oeil tree stump also protrudes from the curved walls, containing a small wood-burning fireplace.
An indoor pond borders the space and small rivers of black pebbles cut across the flooring, leading to a kitchen and dining area decked out in gleaming turquoise flooring. A custom staircase leads upstairs, where the home’s three bedrooms each have a compact bathroom.
Each room has expansive windows, offering views of the property’s impressive desert surroundings.
“It’s on the knife edge of a mesa,” Trujillo said, so the sightlines are "incredible." Predictably, those views are a sizable selling point for the property, the agent noted — maybe even the main selling point.
“People have said they really were wanting to see the home for the views,” he noted. “They’re like, ‘We don’t even care about the structure.’ ”
A popular Instagram post, but no offers — yet
The dome last traded hands around 2007, Trujillo said, mainly serving as the seller’s primary residence. From time to time, they would rent out the dome to tourists visiting Taos, he added, as unique homes like this garner interest on the short-term rental market — and attention on social media.
“It’s been my most popular Instagram post,” Trujillo said. From his roughly 10,000-follower account, about 200,000 users have seen this house he calls “The Dreaming Dome.”
That is more views than most, he said, “but no offers yet, so that’s what’s most important, right?”
With its specific interior design and its unique form, the so-called Dreaming Dome calls to a specific kind of buyer, Trujillo explained. “Mystery around the architecture style” can give interested buyers pause, leaving them to wonder about the safety of a domed residence (“it’s a very solid structure,” Trujillo insisted). Aside from that, he said there are minor stucco blemishes to repair.
Taos is unique, he said. It tends to follow the country’s luxury markets, and, as it’s a popular ski destination, its success partially depends on how much snow the region gets at this time of year. More snow means more visitors, and more potential buyers.
This year, Taos had an early snowstorm, Trujillo said, and there’s already snow on the peaks. With that, plus a promising powdery forecast and recent interest rate movements, “I think it’s going to be a good real estate year,” he said.