Dome with a view

Will and Sue Hille have come to expect how first-time visitors will react upon entering their east-central Spokane home:

“That’s the ‘wow’ view,” says Sue.

Wow indeed.

The Hilles live in a geodesic dome, nestled between two basalt mounds on the lower South Hill.

Step inside and you’re engulfed by a concave, wood-paneled ceiling that seems to tower to the heavens. Light flows in from all angles. A spiral staircase leads to a window-lined cupola offering a panoramic view of the city.

“We’re longtime campers,” says Will, a 71-year-old retired pastor. “And this is like camping in the city.”

The Hilles built their dome home nine years ago, the culmination of a decades-long affinity for geodesic architecture. (The couple even has a silver Volkswagen Beetle parked in the garage.)

“We just really liked the openness of it,” says Sue, 70, the retired director of a Spokane non-profit organization.

Geodesic domes — spherical structures made up of inter-connected triangles —were the brainchild of architect-inventor Buckminster Fuller in the early 20th century.

The domes fit perfectly into Fuller’s mantra of “doing more with less.” Domes are lightweight, energy-efficient, inexpensive to build, and yet incredibly strong.

An estimated 300,000 dome structures now stand around the world, according to the New York-based Buckminster Fuller Institute. It’s unclear how many of those are in the Inland Northwest since no one keeps records on this type of structure.

“There could be 100, there could be 1,000,” says Hugh Mayhew, owner of Domes Northwest, a dome manufacturer in the Spokane Valley.

Mayhew’s company usually puts up no more than a dozen dome homes a year in the Northwest.

Domes are sold in kits by a large number of manufacturers around the country.

Some, like Mayhew’s, arrive like giant tinker-toy kits. The owner or contractor snaps all of the pieces together to form the dome’s shell. Later, windows, skylights and, of course, the roof are installed.

Sure, they may be lovely to live in but aren’t domes notoriously leaky?

Nope, says Mayhew.

“Domes leak. Oh, no,” he says. “Roofs leak. I could make any roof leak … It’s a big job.”

The dome can be up in a couple of days, but it typically takes six to nine months for one to be ready to inhabit.

But domes can certainly become a life-long labor of love. Just ask Spokane Dr. Michael Manz.

Manz, a child psychiatrist who runs the Mountain Dome Winery, started building his 4,000-plus-square-foot dome in 1981.

He has a pat answer for those who ask why he chose dome living:

“How do you live a well-rounded life in a square house?”

Manz and his family have lived in the dome since 1982, but, he says, “my wife will tell you we’re still in the process of finishing it.”

Dome dwellers say they’d never go back to a boring box house again.

But dome living certainly isn’t for everyone.

For one thing, don’t expect to keep many secrets in a dome. A conversation in one part of the house can sound as if it’s happening right next to you because of the structure’s acoustics. (Music-lovers will adore this aspect, however. A few surround-sound speakers and it’s like living in a concert hall.)

And if you need to have rooms tucked away from the action, domes might not be a good choice. (Most dome kits, however, allow for add-ons that radiate out from the dome to create extra space.)

“What they need to do is make a good understanding of what their lifestyle is like and then take a look at the dome from that perspective,” Manz says. “Because it’s an unconventional house.”

For the Hilles, the dome fits like a glove. They love watching the sun glint off the spire of Gonzaga University. Will, a model airplane fanatic, loves having ceilings high enough to display his creations (and, occasionally, fly them indoors). The couple enjoys spending time outside, watching the waterfalls they’ve installed, cascade down the rocks.

“I don’t know if I could go back to living in boxes again,” says Sue.