Dome home in northern Minnesota is energy-efficient, weather-resistant — and listed at $449,000

Rick Kitterman doesn’t remember exactly how he and his wife, Peggy, first thought about living in a geodesic dome. Whatever triggered it, the couple quickly embraced the idea.

After touring a friend’s dome home in Indiana and some domes in the Twin Cities, they decided to build their own dome in Spring Lake, Minn., a tiny unincorporated community in the Chippewa National Forest, about 40 miles northwest of Grand Rapids, Minn.

The three-bedroom, 3,600-square-foot house stands on four heavily wooded acres — home to wildlife including deer, foxes, bears, beavers and porcupines — along the Bowstring River, which is connected to the Bowstring Chain of Lakes. It’s also next to the Anchor Inn Resort, which the Kittermans ran from 2004 until 2022, when they sold the resort and moved to Illinois to live near their children.

So after enjoying the home for 20 years, they’ve listed it at $449,000.

The Kittermans, now both 73, liked how a dome’s structure makes it energy-efficient in northern Minnesota winters and enables it to handle a load of snow.

Those are among the points that Buckminster Fuller, the inventor and architect who developed the idea of geodesic domes in the mid-20th century, made in their favor: that a sphere created from triangles is strong and cost-effective, and that its open interior allows unobstructed heating and cooling circulation, making it more efficient.

Kitterman and his family — including his two sons, his sisters and their husbands — built the four-level house themselves in 2004. They bought the design and some of the materials, and received construction training from Natural Spaces Domes in North Branch, Minn.

“The dome shell can be assembled without the need for professional contractors,” said Tessa Hill, co-owner of Natural Spaces. “Many owners and their friends can complete the build themselves, often over a weekend, depending on the dome’s size.”

The company has sold more than 1,500 homes around the world and nearly 300 in Minnesota, Hill said.

“The growing demand for durable homes in the face of climate change has contributed to [domes’] rise in popularity,” she said. They can even withstand tornadoes.

The Kittermans’ home’s exterior walls contain 16 inches of fiberglass insulation and 2 inches of airspace. A vent system between the insulation and plywood sheathing prevents water condensation, Rick Kitterman said. Vertical exterior walls have vinyl siding; the exterior of the dome and entryway are architectural shingles.

The interior drywall is paneled with tongue-and-groove pine or painted shades of green to reflect the woods visible through the windows.

Inside walls on the main and upper levels are not load-bearing, making room arrangements completely flexible. “If a person wanted to, on the main floor all the way to [the] loft, they could remove everything inside and start over and rebuild all the rooms,” Kitterman said. The round shape makes furniture arrangements flexible, too.

The owners’ suite in the second-floor loft is separated from the living room by a half-wall. Stairs lead to a five-sided cupola atop the half-sphere. The other two bedrooms — one on the main floor and one on the lower level — have full walls. All three bedrooms are accompanied by bathrooms. The owners' suite has a large walk-in closet.

His family liked the home’s free-flowing open spaces, he said. “If you want to be together, a dome is the place to do it.”

Sounds and voices, even spoken at a normal volume, carry easily between the floors. “There are no secrets” in the house, Kitterman joked.

The lower level contains a family room with a propane-fueled stone fireplace and a bar. One side is mostly above ground, with large windows; the other is encased in earth for additional insulation.

The attached garage is also dome-shaped, providing ample space for storage. Between the house and garage is an entryway with a vaulted ceiling and traditional roof — the only part of the house for which you might occasionally need a roof rake, Kitterman said.

Windows throughout are triple-glazed — triangular windows incorporated into the shape of the dome as well as standard rectangular windows. The Kittermans deliberately situated glass “so every window is a new picture,” he said.

“There’s a set of triangular windows in the loft where we had the bed set up,” he said. “Lying in bed, looking up through the windows, you’re seeing the stars. There’s no light pollution.”

Michelle Kutschat of Century 21 (michelle.kutschat@gmail.com; 1-218-256-5774) has the $449,000 listing.