Mushroom House

I was on the quest for information about a commune in Aptos, California when I happened on this little mushroom house. It's one of many mushroom houses designed by Earl Young in the 1930s in Charlevoix, Michigan. More info on this Charlevoix Blog more pics (like above) here. Earl Young wasn't even an architect. He just went to the site, looked around at the topography and trees and sort of merged a house into the existing landscape. He used local boulders and timber and even recyled old barn doors and discarded materials. He was eco-friendly before it was fashionable.

The commune in Aptos about which I was seeking more info is called Trout Gulch. I heard about it on a Canadian podcast, Spark. It's fascinating. These people live off the land in little huts. Their kitchen is outside. One guy lives in a grass shack with a 4 foot door. But the most amazing part is that from this commune, they operate a CGI studio called Encyclopedia Pictura. Aptos is only about an hour's drive from Wellington. And it took listening to a Canadian podcast for me to find out about it. I might just zip over there sometime and take a snurk.