Tucked in the middle of hundreds of trees on a 128-acre lot in Wilburton, Oklahoma, lies a dome-shaped house covered in brown rocks and surrounded by wildlife.
It's off the grid and extremely remote. The nearest Walmart is a little over an hour away.
It's what Steve Engle wanted.
Engle built the home — known as an earth shelter because it is partially underground — as a getaway for him and his family. He has since moved to Texas to be near grandchildren, putting the two-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom house at 6250 SE 1087 Ave. on the market for $389,000.
The 69-year-old a former pilot started building the house back in 2011. “I always thought earth-sheltered housing was a pretty great idea because I lived in Tornado Alley and Tulsa,” he said. “There's always houses getting blown away by tornadoes.”
Though compact at 1,020 square feet, the home features a cozy living area and an upstairs bedroom and the shower-only full bath. It doesn't have a traditional bedroom closet, but there's a storage area. More storage is found in the two shipping containers on the property.
A homemade habitable by pure grit and Mother Nature
The home has a washing machine, but no dryer.
And that's just fine with Engle.
“When I would wash stuff there, I’d just use a clothesline to dry anything — the old-fashioned way, like my mom did when I was a kid,” Engle said.
Engle was a commercial pilot for Southwest Airlines before he retired about five years ago. It would take him three years after that to complete the home.
Though Engle didn’t handle every aspect of construction himself, he played a hands-on role on setting the foundation — digging the footers and installing the rebar. Specialists poured the concrete slab and install the plumbing.
To create the home’s dome shell, Engle hired a Shotcrete company to spray concrete at high velocity over forms. It's a method commonly used to create in-ground pools. He also oversaw the electrical installation and built a road leading to the property.
For power, there are solar panels.
“There's no electricity out there,” Engle said, but “solar is."
For water, there's the rain.
“I collect the rainwater off my porch roof, and I have a 1,700-gallon cistern that's buried in the ground out in front of the cabin,” Engle said. “I've never run out of water ... even during the droughts.”
‘I'm more interested in the grandkids’
Engle said life on the property was just so different, but he enjoyed getting away from all the noise.
“It's really quiet there,” Engle said. “I'd call it a dark sky area, because you can see the Milky Way and all the stars, and there's no traffic."
“It's fun to go out and play,” he added. “I had a garden. I didn't think I would grow much out there as rocky as it is, but I actually grew everything — tomatoes, squash and peppers ... I started feeding all the neighbors around there.”
In addition to gardening, Engle said he’d spent time with his family hunting, feeding the wildlife, riding four-wheelers and even hosting Thanksgiving dinner.
But it’s getting harder for him to maintain the property.
“You’ve got to mow it and keep it up, and you cut your firewood every year,” he said. “I'm getting up there in the seventies and it’s harder for me.”
He has moved from Tulsa to Fort Worth to be closer to his daughter, Leah, and her family.
“I moved down here because I’ve got three new grandbabies now, so I'm more interested in the grandkids,” he said.
It ‘doesn't have all the fancy frills’
David Barnes, listing agent for the property with Century 21 First Choice Realty in Poteau, Oklahoma, said there has been a mixed response from prospective buyers. Some entertained the idea of buying it for year-round living, but "it really wasn't built necessarily for that, especially for a family,” Barnes said.
Engle said the ideal buyer would be someone who really wanted to live remotely and enjoy a simpler life.
“It's livable, but it doesn't have all the fancy frills that a house in town has,” Engle said.
The property underwent a $110,000 price drop in August.
Barnes said the property is not a typical residential property given that it’s on 128 acres.
“I would put this house in that [land] category ... the days on the market for land [in Oklahoma] is running about 200 days now,” Barnes said.
He added that the market has become more balanced since the property first hit the market more than 100 days ago, and there aren’t a lot of buyers.
Engle said the current price reflects his “sweat equity," and he hopes to find someone who will enjoy the home as much as he did.
“I think I've gotten a lot of my money out of the fun and enjoyment that I had using it all these years,” he said.