Homemade cave: simple living (video)

Price’s underground home for $5,000 a year

This is what Dan's actual Hobbit house looks like set into the side of a hollowed hill.

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(Kirsten Dirksen, 9/20/15) When Dan Price returned to his home state of Oregon in 1990, he was determined to avoid mortgages and rent.

(Moonlight Chronicles)

(He and his family had just finished caretaking a mansion with a heating bill of $500 a month). He found an unused meadow in Joseph, Oregon, and began renting it from his neighbors for $100 a year (in exchange for cleaning downed trees and repairing fences).

His first underground structure was actually built to shelter his home-office, namely his copy machine, essential for publishing his zine Moonlight Chronicles, which he started in 1992. (It was sponsored by Simple Shoes for a decade).

In his meadow paradise, Price now also has an underground “Hobbit hole” style home with a composting toilet, propane-powered river water shower, and a pinewood propane sauna.

He’s not hooked up to city water as as spring was discovered on the property. But he’s hooked up to the grid, and it’s been approved by the county and city.

• Original story: faircompanies.com