"Dome, sweet, dome!"
That's an exclamation/bit you could torment your family with ad nauseam if you lived inside a geodesic dome home. Problem is, that style of dwelling is almost nonexistent inside city limits—partially due to the vintage of our urban housing stock, partially due to the relative obscurity of dome homes.
But there is an exception at 5146 Newton Ave. N. in north Minneapolis. That's where, at the end of a cul-de-sac street near Shingle Creek, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2,199-square-foot geodesic dome home hit the market last month for $395,000.
"The original owner was an activist and nonprofit founder who had the dome custom built in 1983," says listing agent Kelly M. Johnson of Edina Realty, adding that, to the best of her knowledge, it's one of just two Minneapolis dome homes. "My clients bought it in 2018 after seeing it featured in the Star Tribune Homes section, and it was a really fun home for them and their three daughters." (It is, in fact, one of two examples in the city, according to Natural Spaces Domes—here's the other.)
Among its many eye-catching and corner-less features: a freshly renovated kitchen, newer roof, spiral staircase, third-floor loft accessible by pull-down ladder, jumbo two-car garage, and woodsy lot inside the city. Plus, it's a freaking dome, man. The current owners acquired it for $210,000, according to county records.
"The novelty never wears off," the original owner, Marie Castle, said in 1994. "There's something really stimulating about it, all the different shapes and angles. Every time I walk in, I feel like it's an interesting place to live."
The popularity of geodesic structures boomed throughout the '70s and '80s. Future-minded owners balanced the pros (structural strength, energy efficiency) against the cons (costly made-to-order updates, tricky interior design), according to this geodesic deep-dive from Popular Science. Take a look around your non-dome home and notice how the furniture, appliances, windows, doors, and HVAC all tend to conform to 90-degree angles, hence the issues with decorating and repairing dome homes. Back in Racket's reader-less infancy, I wrote about this one-of-a-kind, Flintstones-y Duluth dome home that was made via the other once-popular dome construction technique—monolithic polyurethane foam.
Loads of looky-loos packed an open house at 5146 Newton Ave. N. last week, Johnson reports, and the ultra-unique place has stirred plenty of buzz on social media. She thinks the location makes it a "hidden gem."
"The property is in a lesser-known, tucked-away neighborhood in Minneapolis bordering Shingle Creek," Johnson says. "Walking paths along the creek and to the nearby park start just south of the dome and connect to the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway."
Let's take a photo tour courtesy of Edina Realty and Peak Fotos...
