The Fallen Angel’s Nest

Ah, the Angel’s Nest. Arguably the most famous “Earthship” in existence, this peach-and-mint confection of modern organic architecture sits close to the highway in the Greater World Community, beckoning visitors with its flashing windmills, bevy of solar panels, turrets, hydrogen/biodiesel Hummer and fire engine parked in the driveway…

Well, it used to anyway.

Nautilus floor plan from earthship.net

This house started out as the Nautilus, a one-bedroom Earthship with a design based on the Fibonnaci spiral. It was small, but beautiful— or so they say. You can see what remains of the Nautilus in the above photo: it’s the round bit at the right side of the house.

Sometime around 2001, the Nautilus was bought by Robert Plarr and Victoria Peters, two self-described idealists who are dedicated to furthering the cause of sustainability. They decided to turn the Nautilus into a showcase of sustainable and eco-friendly technologies, and renamed it Angel’s Nest.

This is generally where the story ends, when you’re talking to an Earthship community member. The Angel’s Nest involved some crew labor, and shares land with the Greater World; people in the community are reluctant to be overly critical of their neighbors. But from what I can piece together, Mr. Plarr and Ms. Peters may not have been playing with a full deck of cards.

photos from angels-nest.org

Angel’s Nest promotional photo from worldsnest.com

The Nautilus, a model of simplistic beauty and functionality, became a behemoth. Massive solar arrays and huge silver wind turbines sat atop the roof; the inside was caked with crystals and adorned with angel figurines.

It was also (actually, still is) a very beautiful house, a masterful example of modern biotecture. But in their quest for fabulousness, the owners may have overlooked an important tenet of sustainable living: in order for this lifestyle to function, the people living it must reduce their demands on nature.

That is to say: why do you need a palatial mansion for only two people? Of what importance is a second-floor yoga studio, no matter how beautiful it may be? How, exactly, is a stretch Hummer contributing to an attitude of individual responsibility (even if it does run on hydrogen and veggie oil)?

aka “windmill”

But there it was, the Angel’s Nest (now renamed to Worlds Nest). Passersby stopped to marvel at its myriad technologies; renters threw parties in its crystalline living spaces; its inhabitants experimented with building materials, power sources, and some more far-fetched technologies (I heard rumors of crystal healing and people being suspended in flotation tanks, but them’s just rumors).

Long story short: new technology is expensive, and it doesn’t always work as guaranteed. This house was recently abandoned under hush-hush circumstances; some say Robert Plarr was foreclosed upon, and that seems to be substantiated by the trucks I saw driving to and from the house each day, owned by local contractors and carrying banks of batteries, solar panels, the infamous Hummer…

The house is empty now, almost disgustingly so. The plants are dead or dying, and all the solar panels are gone. Large pieces of flagstone, even countertops have been ripped out and carted away. For the Earthship community, this seems to be a mixed blessing: ultimately, the Angel’s Nest misrepresented sustainable living, and maybe now it’ll be bought by someone who can remake it into a functional, livable, non-showpiece sort of house. Still, I think a lot of people understand what it could have been, and wish things had turned out differently here.

But like I said, it is a beautiful house!

One day after work, I headed over to check it out with Tim, Jules, and Joe. We wandered around the outside, looking in windows.

My photos of the Angel’s Nest are below, and on Flickr. If you want to know more, there’s a lovely video here and a slightly more amusing one here, and of course you should check out angels-nest.org and worldsnest.com.

I also recommend the Phoenix Earthship, a more functional (but still luxurious) building that you can rent overnight or buy outright, and on which I actually did a bit of finishing work with my very own hands.