Nobody wanted underground fixer-upper. He turned it into sun-warmed gem

Adrian and Jeff Young had been carrying around a photo of a dream house for years: an arched, glass-sided mountain haven that would let their family feel immersed in the outdoors.

Then Adrian walked into a house in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, that nobody seemed to want, and it looked like a near twin of that photo. The previous owner had built it in 2010 out of a love for astronomy, then left it neglected.

The Youngs bought the 2,800-square-foot house in 2017 and spent months remodeling the forgotten bunker into something bright and playful: part mountain fort, part family hideout. It feels like a burrow, or a den, and it’s still full of light.

What makes it so unusual is that it goes both down and up. Underground, the earth holds a steady temperature all year, cooling the house in summer and keeping the sun’s warmth in winter.

Above ground, a tower rises four stories, topped by a stargazing deck. It’s also a cooling tower, built on the same idea as the wind towers people have used for centuries to cool buildings without electricity. Warm air rises and exits at the top, and cooler air is drawn through the house below.

It’s not so different from how animals have built for ages. Foxes raise their young in dens, rabbits retreat to burrows, and beavers build lodges. Even the local Gunnison’s prairie dog has a lookout tower, a raised mound at the burrow entrance where it stands watch.

The house blends into the mountain so well that animals walk right over it as if it were part of the hillside, including a bear Jeff ran inside to film.

For Adrian and Jeff, the house was about creating a place where their two kids could play, where the family could unplug from the rush, and where simplicity and time together came first.