The Volcano House is a flying-saucer-shaped house that sits atop a 150-foot tall cinder cone of an extinct volcano in the western Mojave Desert of Southern California, the United States, in a place called Newberry Springs. The house was originally commissioned in 1968 by aircraft-mechanics genius Vard Wallace as a retreat for himself and his wife, and designed by the prolific and versatile Southern California architect Harold Bissner, Jr.

Vard Wallace was an engineer who made a fortune selling drafting machines and airplane parts to the likes of Lockheed & Co. during World War II. He was also an inventor who patented the first “skateboard”. Wallace hired Harold Bissner Jr. to design a home resembling the dome-shaped information center built in 1965 at the construction site of the nuclear generating plant at San Onofre. Wallace reportedly picked the remote location as a tribute to his passions for trout fishing and astronomical pursuits.

Huell Howser pointing to Volcano House. Photo credit