In 1983, engineer Greg Reinhart bought a patch of raw land in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert and began carving out a home beneath it. Inspired by the animals around him, Greg chose to build an underground, earth-sheltered dome that would use the desert itself as insulation.

Using a kit from Earth Systems, Greg spent more than a year excavating the site and erecting the steel-reinforced dome that would eventually be buried under tons of soil. The kit provided the structural bones—steel posts, rebar, burlap forms, anchor plates embedded into the concrete slab—but Greg (often with the help of friends) did nearly everything himself: raising the ring and beams, framing the interior, and completing all the plumbing, electrical, and finishing work by hand.

Once covered, the house seemed to disappear. Greg carefully matched the exterior color to the surrounding sand—literally sampling the desert soil to find the right shade—so the dome blends almost seamlessly into the landscape. Over the decades, wildlife has made itself at home around the structure. Bobcats lounge nearby, coyotes pass through, and roadrunners and quail nest just outside the door.

The earth provides what the desert cannot: stability. Underground, temperatures remain steady year-round—cool during scorching summers and warm through cold desert winters. The home also offers peace of mind during monsoon season, when heavy storms rattle conventional houses but barely disturb life beneath the soil. With minimal heating and cooling needs, energy bills stay remarkably low.

After more than four decades of desert living, Greg and his wife have decided to move to Japan. Though he’s fallen in love with reinforced concrete homes there, he admits that leaving the thermal comfort and quiet protection of the earth won’t be easy. If he could transport this dome across the ocean, he would.