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TUCSON (AP) — Cathy Wertz and Randy Clark were camped outside Bisbee, trying to figure out how to build a home without altering the natural beauty of the cliff-side land they had just purchased, when they heard explosions from a neighboring property.
They investigated and found mining engineer Gus Gonnason blasting a home for himself in the “competent rock” of a site half a mile away in the Mule Mountains.
“When you’re done, can you come over and do one for us?” Clark asked him.
He could. He did. As a result, Wertz and Clark were able to burrow most of their nearly 3,000 square feet of living space into the cliff, with only the windowed wall of their sunroom marking its existence.
 Randy Clark, left, and Cathy Wertz are pictured in the living room of their cave home in Bisbee, Ariz., Tuesday Aug. 28, 2007. (AP Photo/Arizona Daily Star, Greg Bryan) |
The rest of their 45 acres — minus a network of stone paths and a guest house and several outbuildings discretely tucked into the oak and pinon canopy — is as they found it in 1984.
Wertz and Clark have decided to sell — asking price for the cave and grounds is $2.7 million.
The mile-high property is home to more than 400 native plant species, including some rare orchids and passion flower vines, 79 species of birds and 113 butterfly species.
The stream dries up seasonally in spring and fall, said Wertz, but is reliably cool and refreshing when the monsoon comes.
Wertz heard about the waterfall and pools from a rancher friend who said it had been a favorite spot when he was in school.
Wertz and Clark first explored the property in 1984, after climbing the barbed-wire fence that encircled it. They tracked down the owners and bought the land.
For the next 15 years, they camped or lived in what is now the guesthouse, as the cave was excavated into a left-angled run with grottoes that ascends to a second, smaller opening.
The higher opening was a lucky mistake, said Clark. “Gus’ last blast went up instead of out.”
The resulting elevation difference induces a convective breeze when the doors and windows are opened.
The interior is an average 68 degrees, considered the optimum temperature for human habitation, said Wertz. It can get as high as 72 degrees in summer and, in winter, with windows open, can cool down to 65.
So —no heating, cooling or water bills. Water for washing and irrigating is diverted from the stream to tanks above the cave and gravity-fed into the house.
Clark poured cement to create an even floor, then topped it with red and tan concrete tiles. He channeled the sides to allow water to run outside. “You can’t stop a cave from seeping when it rains,” said Wertz, and the couple found that one place was continually wet. It was a spring whose mineral water now drips from a copper pipe into an onyx basin at the back of the cave, providing fresh, cool water.
There were no building codes when the cave was built, so Wertz asked the state mining inspector to come by for a look.
He agreed with Gonnason’s appraisal of the cave’s geology— it was “competent,” meaning it would hold voids without supports.
“He said this house will be here about 10,000 years,” said Wertz, “so we decided we’d better put in a good kitchen.”
“There are cave homes all over the world but nothing like this,” said Jean Noreen, a friend of the couple and the real estate agent who listed the house.
Their preserve is a full-time commitment, said Wertz, 64. She and Clark, 68, want more flexibility.
Wertz said she wants the property in the hands of a conservationist, who will keep it as pristine as possible and build on the work already done by plant and animal researchers “It’s so hard to give up living in a paradise like this,” she said.
