They Built Forty-Eight Domes in Texas and One Dream Dome in Tennessee

A beautiful rock-clad Monolithic Dome is perched at the edge of Cherokee National Forest, built by hard work and two decades of daydreams.

“A lot of imagination went into it,” said Kevin McGuckin, who owns Iron Mountain Dome with the woman of his dreams, Hannah Mallon.

April 2024 marked the silver anniversary of the day that the Texan couple first set foot on the land they love in Mountain City, Tennessee.

“It’s a small town, not likely to grow, with a lake close by for water sports and only a few biting insects,” McGuckin said. “It’s a beautiful part of the world, and it has low taxes.”

The nine acres of land adjoin Cherokee National Forest, only 15 miles from Watauga Lake and an hour’s drive from all the stores in Johnson City. Mallon knew they had to have that land.

“She knew, and she was right,” McGuckin said.“We bought the last available lot there.”

The couple started splitting time between Tennessee summers and Texas winters. Texas became their workplace, while Tennessee felt more and more like home.

They met years ago at McGuckin’s flower stand on a pretty day when the Texas bluebonnets were in full bloom. Soon after, McGuckin established a successful nursery business while Mallon owned and operated her own business in packing and shipping. They both have that entrepreneurial spirit.

The Inn at Brenham

In 2005, McGuckin attended a Monolithic Dome Builders Workshop to learn to build Monolithic Domes. By 2006, he’d figured out how to bring affordable housing to their Texas town. They founded the Inn at Brenham, first with eight domes, then 16, adding eight a year until they had a total of 48 units by 2012. They rented the 20-foot diameter, 300-square-foot studio apartments by the week, providing reasonably priced, comfortable and safe housing for people living paycheck-to-paycheck and those who didn’t care to be tied to leases.

“We wanted safe, comfortable homes for people whose lives change a lot,” McGuckin said. “When opportunity comes knocking, we wanted them to be able to take that opportunity, without worry about breaking a lease. With a deposit, they could go on the waiting list, and that waiting list stayed full. It worked out fine.”

Business kept booming. McGuckin used his nursery experience to create the inviting landscaping for the studios and those first eight domes have never been empty. One person has lived in their studio apartment dome for 11 years, and six people have lived there for more than eight years. All the while, McGuckin and Mallon kept their Tennessee dreams alive.

“A lot of people can’t foresee themselves actually building the place where they want to be,” McGuckin said. “It’s a fantasy they don’t think they ever can fulfill. I already had skills and had built greenhouses, plus I knew something about construction, wiring, and plumbing. I hired the plumbing, sheetrock, and wiring out, with good laborers.”

Constructing Their Dream Home

In Tennessee, they lived in a Quonset hut in the summers and started working on the dome home that would become their retirement haven. One summer, they built the shell of their new dome, and the next summer, they put in the slab floor and patios. They did the hardscape, completed the interior framing, and installed beautiful arched windows. It wasn’t all easy, though. At one point, a cabinetmaker went seventeen months over the planned time for finishing the cabinetry.

“Experiences give you wisdom to live by,” McGuckin said. “I designed it and got it built, and while there’s a thing or two I may wish I’d done differently, I love living here and seeing the things that got done just right.”

In 2020, they sold the Inn at Brenham and its 48-studio domes in Texas. That business continues to thrive. Three years later, they made the leap to a quieter life in Tennessee, living year-round on Iron Mountain.

Mountain City is the highest unincorporated city in Tennessee, and while they won’t have the hundred degree Texas heat, winters will be colder there. They chose a hydronic heating system made in Mount Airy, North Carolina. The makers brought it up to Tennessee and installed it in the original Quonset hut, which has now become a garage with attached guest house. In this system, a wood fired stove heats 500 gallons of water, and the hot water is pumped throughout the in-floor tubing of Iron Mountain Dome to heat it up. The boiler that heats the water stays outside the dome, so there’s no smoke or debris in the house.

“We knew we were going to choose that type of system, so we installed the tubing for the heat before we laid the concrete,” McGuckin said. “With the tubing in the slab, we were set and ready to go.”

Wood keeps the boiler going from November through April, and they have a standard heat pump for the milder seasons. McGuckin cuts his own trees, so the system ought to remain sustainable for many years to come.

Living the Dream

“Having had 48 apartments to manage, I’m okay now with going four or five days with no people,” McGuckin said. “We live 1.9 miles up Iron Mountain, and we can see all the way to Grandfather Mountain.”

The McGuckin and Mallon 40-foot diameter dream dome home in Tennessee is a 22 feet high, half sphere on a two-foot stem wall. The interior has 1150 square feet on the ground floor, with an 800 square foot loft upstairs. Light flows into the dome from seven custom-made windows, with casements and glass that swings out. Six of the windows have ellipses on top echoing the shape of the dome.

McGuckin made the difficult decision to tile rock onto the vinyl Airform, using an adhesive called NP-1. The flat, thin rocks were placed one by one, hand-fitted together to create a dome home that’s also a vibrant work of art.

“The rock coating protects the vinyl from the sun,” McGuckin said pragmatically. “It’s on a waterproof membrane. We had fun doing it. We got as far as we could reach, but there was a four foot wide strip left. One of the workers had been an arborist, so he brought his ropes and equipment. We had left a nine inch bolt on the top of the concrete, so he hung off the side and glued the rocks one by one, then did that grouting.”

The main floor hosts a kitchen on the south side, with a 12-foot by 13-foot patio window and sliding patio door, a bedroom, bathroom, the entry, and an office. A bespoke staircase leads to the upper level, which includes a large bedroom and bathroom.. All the smooth, plastered walls have been painted Mediterranean white. The loft has hardwood floors while the first floor features a Saltillo tile floor.

Sometimes bears come to visit from the forest next door. Now that Mallon and McGuckin have dogs, those visits happen less frequently than they once did.

“One time, a bear had his feet on the windowsill and was looking into the dome,” McGuckin said. “It was dark, and he was peering inside here. We have a lot of bear stories.”

Trees surround Iron Mountain Dome. McGuckin and Mallon have no worries about them falling, though.

“If a tree falls on it, it’s going to break the tree, not the dome,” McGuckin said.

The dome fits naturally into its wooded setting, with foundation plantings and a retaining wall topped by an extensive flower garden of irises, peonies, dahlias, phlox, penstemons, rudbeckias, daylilies, and more. McGuckin and Mallon have more time to garden and to relax in their dome now, no longer zipping back and forth between two states.

“This year, we can plant daffodils and tulips,” McGuckin said. “Going from Tennessee to Texas, we never could see them bloom here before. We enjoy living here. We enjoy every bit of it.”