MOUNTAINSIDE MARVEL

Inside a self-sustaining mountainside marvel

MY JOB HAS TAKEN

hill or mountainside, give the interior an earthy feel; live me inside hundreds harvesting your own water plants provide the color pop. Ceilings of homes, but none and power, producing and some walls are tongue-and-groove as fascinating as an your own food, and pine; other walls are smooth adobe. Earthship in Park County, containing and treating When Cherrie and Guy took Colorado. your own sewage. Did possession, the interior had poured

Its owners, Cherrie I mention the primary concrete floors and rough adobe walls and Guy Geerdts, traded CHRIS CHRISTEN construction materials that needed repair and finishing. Enter careers in Denver in 2012 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF are old tires, bottles, cans Lisa and Randy, my husband’s sister and for laid-back mountain and adobe mud? her husband, who did the tile and stone life near Guffey ... population 25. Four The Earthship concept minimizes work, a complex process because of the years ago, they began looking at off-grid reliance on public utilities and fossil curved and irregular walls. The “talker” possibilities. “Nothing was right,” Guy fuels. This house has a propane stove is a meandering river rock walkway that recalls, until they landed the Earthship. “There were all kinds of signs that we and water heater. There’s a backup generator that runs off propane — starts at the entry and “flows” to the were meant to own it. And, boom! installed after a blizzard left Cherrie opposite end of the house. We’re here.” stranded in the high mountain house Cherrie and Guy have been self-

In keeping with the architect’s vision, without power and water for four days. sustained during the pandemic. In much of the construction is done by Rooftop rainwater and snow is collected the spring, they’ll continue to work the dwelling’s intended inhabitants. in a cistern for various household uses; on exterior features, including raised The original owners of this Earthship solar panels provide the electricity; heat garden beds, and a patio for taking in broke ground in 1993 and spent 20 years is passive solar, through the windows. those sweeping vistas. moving it toward completion. The floorplan is linear, flowing from In the mountains, sunrises and

The Earthship style was pioneered by living room to kitchen, full bath, TV sunsets are great. “But the night sky Michael Reynolds during the “back-to- room and bedroom. An indoor planting gives me goosebumps,” Guy says. “The the-land” movement of the 1960s and bed, served by a gray water irrigation sky just comes alive because there are ’70s. A typical blueprint calls for nesting system, runs the length of the structure. no city lights. The Milky Way is right in the back of the home into an earthen Natural materials, colors and textures front of us.”

Owners Guy and Cherrie have been self-sustained in their mountainside home during the pandemic. They collect rainwater for household uses, generate solar electricity and grow food in their indoor garden. Building into the ground helps regulate the indoor temperature of an Earthship. Windows along the south side of the dwelling create warmth and bring in sunlight.