hey there welcome back to my channel where i feature creative space and alternative home tours
a few years ago i featured a tour of a home that was inspired by the lunar lander and i
thought i'd never feature a home more out of this world than that one but i was wrong because in
today's video we're going to take a tour of a tiny home that looks like a flying saucer
this space is not only ridiculously cool but it's also one of the most popular airbnbs out
there so if you're interested in the experience of feeling like a martian who's just landed on earth
you better book well in advance today we're going to take a tour with ronald
the owner of this extraterrestrial structure who's going to tell us about the history and how his son
inspired him to build something out of this world this video is a continuation of my
channel's partnership with airbnb where i show you some of the most unique and
quirkiest rentals around america and share the stories behind the hosts that own them
hi i'm ronald jackson and welcome to area 55 for toro house
the futoro homes were developed in the 1970s as vacation homes less than 100 were made
currently to date there are maybe about 60 or maybe a little bit less than 60 in the entire
world we always wanted to do an airbnb i knew i wanted to do something creative
and something different if you really want to stand out and thrive you have to be able
to think outside of the box as soon as i came out here to this land i just instantly felt inspired
i googled ufo house and this was the first thing that popped up i went down a rabbit hole of the
futuro's history and just learning everything that i could to the point where i just started trying
to track down and hunt down owners that were willing to speak with me and potentially sell
and that's how we ended up here one of the main things that i did this for was from my son
my son was born may 14 2019 this was mainly done for my son because i wanted to have something
for when he's older he can take and run and do whatever he would like have passive income
so on and so forth one of the goals is to make our space very user-friendly as simple as possible
if i were to come here as a guest i would want to come here and be blown away it's from i see
the spaceship get excited to what is glamping and i want to experience glamping this is an extension
of me and i want everyone that is here that's visiting to have a good time and enjoy themselves
one of the main questions i get is are you really booked up till december 2022 i have bookings as
soon as it opens and i say it it literally has booked within 10 seconds the demand is so high
i started with a budget of 60 000 i very much so surpassed it there was a lot more that went into
it from purchase to delivery refurbishing and i've changed interiors maybe three four times already
the overhead is surprisingly very little that's one of the benefits you get of having an off-grid
glamping experience being that we're solar powered we're not burdened with an electric bill
but on the income side at this point we've definitely have broke even it's allowing for
us to do a lot of wonderful things like saving to then create our second project
here we have one of our solar panels this solar panel in general is only for the door the reason
we had it this way is just that should there be any sort of overpower usage of our main power this
is on its own separate power system so that we'll never have any technical issues with our door
opening or closing just over here on top of the pergola we have eight 375 kilowatt solar panels
up there that are powering everything inside the futoro the structure itself is actually made out
of plastic and fiberglass can make it quite difficult to maintain in a lot of these harsh
weathers but you know we put a lot of love and care into it and i think it's great it is sitting
elevated on these steel beams that i actually had to have fabricated because the original ones were
so rusted from their original place of sitting in wisconsin just wanted to be safer and so i
had these constructed these are just the toughest steel beams you can get what we did is we actually
poured concrete on the ground to make these little platforms for all four and we have them bolted
here going up into the toro where we have these bolted into the futoro to keep it stable we get
high winds up to 40 miles an hour out here over here we have the outdoor shower let's check it out
these lights around here are solar powered as well so if it's at night they will automatically
cut on for you you don't have to worry about turning them on or off and our shower is cold
water and hot water if you're coming out here and it's a really really hot day you can easily
just come here cool off or if it's a little bit colder you can turn the heat on and have a nice
hot shower here we have our water supply for the shower this is a 2500 gallon water tank that we
have hauled in i've had this last as long as up to three months before i've had to refill
we have our glamping restroom here is the inner workings of it uh it is completely solar powered
and we have a car battery inside and it's just a simple hookup to where you know when you want to
use this restroom all you have to do is just flip those three switches on the inside and
the bathroom will start on up for you and you can use it with running fresh water to wash your hands
and also fresh water to flush after use so you don't get that really nasty reused water smell
people can just feel like you know they're getting their sanitary needs met i felt this offered the
best glamping sort of experience for guests out here we have our pergola outdoor kitchen area
where we have two grills that you can use one for your larger things like if you wanted to put
an entire turkey in there you could or if it's just regular grilling you can do that as well
the fire pit area it's forever changing and evolving when i come out here i like to kind
of just create that aesthetic that i would enjoy this area is our outdoor game area over here we
have one of my favorites it's called foaling it is basically bowling and football mixed together
i just feel like it was just a nice little extra touch that people would enjoy
one of my favorite things about this location being in joshua tree is a the silence also you
get beautiful beautiful views you just kind of get a sense out here of just being away
but still close enough to where if you need to run into town to get something it's just a quick five
to seven minute drive and then you're coming right back out here to just peace and quiet come on in
what i've gone for in here is a very open
concept floor plan the space is just a little bit over 400 square feet
we have these ottoman couch slash bed
situation here where these can fold out or you can have them as individual single beds
then over here is more like a bar sort of sitting area where you can have your coffee and
ortiz as our kitchen is outdoors but in here you can bring your food in obviously whether
you know if you want to sit here and with your friends or family or if it's just you and a loved
one you guys want to have a nice beautiful view of the mountains just over this way
and over here we have a vintage vhs tape player tv i thought it was really awesome
it's very nostalgic for me i remember growing up on these things so i just felt it was only
right to get one of these along with getting all your favorite alien inspired vhs tapes we have
lots of storage here under each of these with 400 square feet you have to really make use of
every single space you can and with craig and lisa they were actually a home depot
find they were actually on sale for halloween and there was no way i could not get them
and over here we have our little vintage inspired mini fridge this is actually a new addition being
that we are an off-grid experience we have to be very conservative of our power and at
the same time you know i understand when guests come you know if they want to go out and grill
and have like ice cold drinks we have to figure out ways outside of bringing in huge buckets of
ice to help them so we have this here it has been wonderful so far and we have had no power outages
that i know of yet one of the other things that we have to be very mindful of out here in the desert
of joshua tree is that it gets very very hot in the summers and one of the ways that we've crafted
to kind of help combat the heat is creating these sort of hand made window covers essentially we had
blackout covers over our windows aesthetically it just didn't look the greatest to me
and i just felt like we needed something a little sleeker what i enjoy about these are
that this is essentially an insulation it does a wonderful job and you can easily just pop these on
and take them off and stack them just to the side and over here we have my favorite
we have my egg chairs these were amazon finds i searched all over the internet
from ebay to facebook marketplace uh even went to a couple vintage stores and even the ones i
came across they were just so so so so expensive definitely one of the eye catchers uh within the
futoro that guests are drawn to you know just being that you can sit back and you can grab
one of these pillows and kick your feet up turn on the stereo and just really enjoy it because
they are very comfortable and they're just nice to be in the fluance speaker i love this speaker
i got it mainly because the aesthetics were so beautiful and i felt that it just fit this entire
area because it gives a futuristic yet still a very vintage look and it sounds incredible
so over here we have our space heater to power this is simply just by propane this can really
get up to temperature and keep all the gas very warm and just over here we have a toshiba
air conditioner this is actually the biggest power generator so we have a generator just outside
that guest can turn on that will power the ac and cool down the space and then also for ventilation
up here we have a solar attic fan our attic vent is completely solar powered and it just runs as
the sun is on it and just keeps it at a nice level room temperature we have this area here that kind
of gives a more of a fun sort of childish like thing where you can bring your board games cards
whatever and you can play right here and just enjoy and you still get a beautiful 360 view
it's called area 55. if you look up the meaning of the number 55 it says something about happiness
success like unforeseen success which this has been for us this is not just a money thing for
me you know this is a passion project and it's something that i really care about
i want everyone to ultimately just come with an open mind leaving all negativity bad energy out
the door come and just be and i think they'll have the experience that they're meant to have
thanks for watching this week's video make sure to check out the other unique
and out of this world home tours that i have on this channel