Pond View

Penn and his then-partner Andra started building a cabin in September of 2002. It is now the home of Sparky. It’s a load-bearing strawbale structure built on top of an insulated gravel-trench-and-earthbag foundation. (No concrete!) The interior living space is 10 feet by 13 feet, with a 6 foot by 10 foot sleeping loft.

They decided not to put any windows on the “first floor” and instead have four doors — one on the east, one on the west, and the two pictured here on the south. The two glass doors on the south allow in plenty of sunlight during the winter so as to provide some passive solar heating and a great view of the “Cattail Pond”.