When Sam Friedman sold his parking app, ParkMe, in 2016, he found himself at a creative crossroads. As the Los Angeles tech developer pondered his next venture, a friend told him about a unique property near Joshua Tree that had just come on the market, “unique” being the operative word. Previously owned by a pair of Canadian physicists—who also happened to be nudists—it encompassed 112 acres and featured an abandoned 1,600-square-foot geodesic dome crowned by a faceted skylight. That the site had no water or power only heightened its allure. Sam put in a cash offer. “It was weird,” he admits. “But I was up for a challenge.”

The rodent droppings that littered the ramshackle dome were the least of its problems. The interior was bisected by a floor-to-ceiling partition and divided into two levels without any real plan. “The living area was on one side of the wall and the other half was dead space,” he remembers. “The roof was in good shape, but the wood was rotted and the copper wiring had all been stripped.” Despite never having done anything even remotely like it before, Sam decided to gut and rehab the structure with only the assistance of day help and friends. “I don’t like to hire for positions unless I know what I’m hiring for,” he says.

While doing research on geodesic dome pioneer Buckminster Fuller, Sam happened upon an architect who advised against the typology: “He said there’s a reason we build things in simple box structures—it just makes more sense. Domes tend to leak, they’re harder to drywall, and they add a lot of inconveniences, so there may not be a cost benefit to them. But there was no way I was going to knock it down. I loved it.”

Sam threw himself into the project, learning SketchUp and living in an Airstream on-site through much of the construction, which enabled him to tackle everything from drawing up plans and pulling permits to building furniture and even driving a bulldozer to expand the road and add guest parking. Along the way he discovered he had a facility for technical details, like trouble-shooting the setup of the property’s energy system, which relies on 21 solar panels and three lithium-ion batteries that deliver six kilowatt hours apiece. “What’s typical is to contract with a solar installer and they’ll size the system and install it—I did everything up until the install part,” he says. “I saved money not hiring a contractor, but I definitely spent money when I had to go back and do things differently or when I changed my mind on something.”

Keeping the property off-grid meant buying a small, low-powered refrigerator and freezer, a propane gas range, and propane refrigerators for outdoor use. “It’s shocking how much electricity we use on the grid,” he says. “Most people use between twenty and seventy kilowatt hours a day, depending on the season and their location. In winter, I use significantly less than the average, but in summer, there really isn’t a way to avoid higher energy usage if we have the AC on.”

Water was another complication. After exploring his options, Sam added a second 2,500-gallon water container to the existing tank on the property and installed a gray-water system for flushing the toilet and irrigating plants. “I try to conserve water, but you want your guests to be able to take showers and do what they need to do,” he says.

After transforming the chopped-up interior into an airy, cohesive space and framing the skylight and windows in birch, he reached out to his friend Julia Ehrlich, a fashion stylist and budding interior designer, for help with furnishings.

Sam now rents out the place, which he calls Hawkeye House, when he’s not staying there. He’s also thinking about building some cabins on the property. “I was the least handy guy before this, and now I can wire an electrical panel and frame walls,” he says with a laugh. “I tell my mom I can build a house, and she still doesn’t believe it.”

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Project Credits:

Project Management: Sam Friedman and Oscar Berrios

Interior design: Julia Ehrlich

Cabinetry design: Harrison Fraley and Aaron Michael Wood

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A Tech Entrepreneur Rehabs an Off-Grid Dome Home in Joshua Tree