Fuller, R. Buckminster, and Anne Hewlett Dome Home National Register of Historic Places Listing

In 1960, Buckminster Fuller needed a home in Carbondale while teaching at Southern Illinois University. He built a dome. Actually, it was the only geodesic dome he ever owned and lived in during his lifetime. It cost him about $9,500. Workers assembled the entire shell on April 17 using sixty triangular Douglas fir plywood panels. It took them just seven hours. Incredible.

The house acted as a live-in laboratory. Fuller wanted to prove that spherical homes could conserve energy, reduce building materials, and maximize space. The math worked. With a 39-foot diameter, the dome offered about 1,200 square feet of living space. A central loft split the interior. He and his wife, Anne, crammed the place with thousands of books, hanging plants, and custom curved furniture. It was cozy. They lived there until 1971, a period when Bucky's global fame peaked and he traveled constantly.

After the Fullers moved out, the dome suffered. Nature took a heavy toll. Water seeped through the seams of the sixty plywood panels, rotting the wood and ruining the interior. By the early 2000s, the structure faced demolition. Locals stepped in. They formed a non-profit, secured the property, and spent years raising funds to restore the dome to its original 1960 condition. They listed it on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Today, it stands as a fully restored museum in Carbondale, showing off the genius of a man who tried to reinvent how humans live.