saintpaulitan
by nick and patty

Way back in May, at the Living Green Expo, Patty and I ran across a map of all the geodesic dome houses in Minnesota, and we noticed that one of them appeared to be in our own neighborhood, just a few blocks from our apartment. We literally spent two months looking for it — on walks, on bike rides, in our cars and on Google Maps. What started as a passing curiosity quickly became a kind of ludicrous obsession, as we simply could not find the thing.

Finally, via the “Neighborhoods” application available on Facebook, Patty was able to find somebody who knew where it was. Much to our chagrin, it was even closer than we had thought. It’s wedged into a corner at a six-way intersection, which is apparently what had made it so difficult to find.

Tonight, while out on a walk, we finally decided to see it up close and in person. The place is tiny. The owner happened to be out in his (equally tiny) yard doing some gardening, and since he noticed us gawking rather bizarrely at his place of residence we decided we might as well introduce ourselves. I forgot to ask his name, unfortunately, but he was a nice guy. He said he’s been living in the house since 2000; prior to his moving in, the house had been built on what was apparently an old parking lot. He said his lawn and his gardens literally sit on dirt planted over asphalt. His bedroom sits in the top part of the dome, apparently, in a loft.

Well, there you have it. Mystery solved.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Cool Places, Saint Paul, Weirdness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.