Talk About Second Homes: Here’s a 72,000 Square Foot Concrete Second Home Going Up In Missouri

I just got back from a terrific weekend in an amazing home on Cypress Springs Lake. But boy oh boy, look at this. A Virginia man is building a 72,000 square-foot house in the Missouri Ozarks with 13 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms and other features that could include a library, music room, theater and a garage — just the garage, mind you — measuring 4,000 square feet. The footprint of the house is just under 2 acres. Get this: it’s a second home for the man and his family of four kids. 

The house is made from a special steel-reinforced concrete that is energy-efficient and highly resistant to things like tornadoes, which is likely a good thing because this part of Missouri, near Branson, is prone to them. 

The owner, 60 year old Steven Huff, 60, is chairman of TF Concrete Forming Systems, which makes the concrete. He grew up in Missouri, and the giant home is near his boyhood home — much smaller, I’m sure, than this number.

His project is called Pensmore, and it has drawn a lot of attention because of its size and construction materials. Some people thought he was building a sort of apocolyptic end of the world shelter, or a bomb shelter, or a home for Brangelina. 

“The mission behind Pensmore is to serve as a living laboratory for ongoing research into energy conservation and disaster resistance,” Huff told Reuters.

“While the structure will also be a home to my family, our hope is that curiosity and gossip will fade to make room for the valuable insights a project of this scale can yield for building the homes, schools, hospitals and office buildings of the future.”

Huff has supersized the home to be a high-profile example to demonstrated energy efficiency — proving, I guess, that if he ends up with $100 a month utility bills on a house that size, the rest of us in slider-sized homes could follow his building lead. The concrete is mixed with bits of steel, poured into wall forms and very well insulated on the outside; concrete absorbs the heat, keeping the house cooler.

A portion of the house can be seen by motorists on U.S. Highway 65 between Springfield and Branson, Mo. and the home is a year away from completion. Tours are going to be available soon, and I will be raising my hand to head towards Missouri and check this out for you!

Question: does this look like a fun second home?