In April of 1971, as a college sophomore on spring break from Indiana University, I visited New Mexico. It was love at first sight, even though I was raised in southern Indiana on the Ohio River where it is very humid and lush. I found the dry climate, unending views and daily sunshine very liberating. Upon returning, I immediately applied to the University of New Mexico. I was accepted and the rest, as they say, is history.
By that August, I had started school, stumbled across Placitas and the cooperative community called Tawapa. It was such a unique place then with five families who had built their own houses, while trying to live self-sufficiently off the land. After going to the community dinners a few times and hanging out by the stream, swimming in the pond and enjoying the shade of the cottonwoods, I knew that little valley was for me.
I was invited to join the group and build my own place. Since I was totally inexperienced in construction, I took some friendly advice to build a dug-out house. This sounded good, not because it entailed a lot of back-breaking digging, but it required very little carpentry or masonry knowledge. With two buddies who volunteered their labor and my wonder dog, Herbie helping with the digging, we picked and shoveled a big hole in the side of a hill next to the stream.
Porter, left, one of two brothers, Bruce or
Barry Haas from Indiana, "Herbie", center front
Once the hole was dug, we made trip after trip in my VW bus to pick up free ten-foot-long `end cuts’ from the Bernalillo sawmill. These were the left-over pieces from the cut trees that had three square sides and a jagged outer edge. The plan was to construct a big wooden box outside of the hole using some donated four-by-four-inch beams, upright, with the `end cuts’ nailed on the outside and inside. This created four inches of space to back fill with the dirt from the hole. The result was a type of rammed-earth house that was energy efficient for the desert climate.
I then bought four vigas, a window, a door and some hardware and got help installing those. Then we hauled the rest of the dirt from the hole onto the roof, and `presto’ I had a completed shell. We salvaged a fifty-five gallon oil drum to make a wood stove, threw some straw on the floor and hung some lanterns. Water was from the spring, the bathroom was behind the third bush from the left and before I knew it, I had a house for under 300 bucks. Soon, friends were dropping by to play the drums and I had my first home in New Mexico!
My Dug-Out Home, Carolyn from Wisconsin (I think!)
Porter Dees, Associate Broker
