I obviously can’t have a treehouse here in the valley of the sun, so why not go underground? I’ve got a fair bit of land here and a small backhoe I can dig it my self (yeah-sure). I was thinking something along the lines of Luke Skywalker’s childhood home meets a hobbit hole.
Underground Homes are nothing new, and in my ever present quest for the obscure I think they would be right up my alley! I’m not sure at this juncture where I’d go with it, perhaps a guest house, playroom, something…I’m not sure yet.
My questions are: Overall what do you think? Pretty funky but not unheard of weird.
Do you think permitting would change? I know the town cares if we go up, but what about down?
Could eb a fun project come fall! 
More to come.
You haven’t dug many holes in the valley of the sun have you. You are about to learn all about caliche. It’s basically a layer of limestone that forms from the heat baking all the moisture out of the ground and it can make excavation much more expensive.
If you can get around that I think a semi underground or rammed earth home has a lot of anvantages, particularly in the vally of the merciless, blistering, hydrogen bomb shining down on us from heaven.
Say, what part of the valley do you live it? Flooding can be an issue in places you wouldn’t expect.
We live way out in the foothills in Ahwatukee…Directly perpendicular to the South Mountain Radio Towers…I look out my back yard and a little to the left and I can see the towers. We were lucky, we got in before the everything went crazy here real-estate wise…
Is this for the cat?
If you want odd, how about a yurt?
As a kid I would imagine cool houses I would design and one was like what you are suggesting, only mine looked over the ocean and you drove up, parked on a little area and then went to the tree, opened the door and took the elevator down. Hey, I was a kid then and it was a great idea.
But I still like the concept, and think it would make for a great rec-room, office, party room, bar, guest bedroom. Perhaps doing the ceiling with a root motif, as if a tree’s roots were growing through.
And you have to have a “secret” front door. I donno - a rock slab or a fake cactus that lifts the door…something that will make people smile when they go for the first time. (You could have the “real” door around back if you wanted)
And be sure to have some kind of river run through it, even if it is nothing more than a glorified fountain that runs from one end of the house to the next.
I would have a blast designing something like this!
I love the idea. I have since the 70’s, which is obviously when that one house was built. Do you already have a pool? Be an easy conversion.
I agree! thanks for the ideas, we are planning on some lil’phlosphr’s running around one of these days and that may come in handy for them.
As for a Yurt - that is not a bad idea at all. I like circular designs.
I do have a pool, but I’m not draining that for anything!
Do you remember a book Lao Tsu from the 70’s called Shelter - I get a lot of my ideas from those guys!
There is a new book too by the same folks called “Home Work” Hand made shelters.
Just for the heck of it, here are two links to underground homes.
http://www.anomalynews.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=363&t=363
http://www.monolithic.com/gallery/homes/young/index.html
Thought you might enjoy reading about them.
Whoops…here’s the actual link for that first one…sorry.