Gary Clark outside the Monolithic Dome home he built in 1995 on West Ellsworth Road in Lodi Township. The home will be open for tours this Saturday.

Janet Miller | For AnnArbor.com

From the inside, Gary Clark's house almost looks like every other three-bedroom, one-and-half bath home: The interior walls are made of drywall, the great room is filled with light from three sets of windows and a breakfast bar divides the kitchen from the dining area.

But the rough textured walls hint at something different. So do the gently curved outer walls in each room.

From the outside, it’s clear the house is a showstopper, a conversation piece, an exception in the world of houses built with right angles. In fact, passersby have stopped to ask Clark about the house, located on two acres of former farmland off of Ellsworth Road, near Zeeb Road, in Lodi Township.

"Since I was in high school, I’ve wanted to build a house that made more sense,” Clark said. “I looked into log cabins, geodesic domes and underground homes.”

But he settled on the Monolithic Dome, not to be confused with a Geodesic Dome, which is made of a myriad of pieces, joined so they form a segmented dome. Monolithic Domes are a single piece and are considered stronger and more durable, Clark said.

The master bedroom on the second level of Gary Clark's Monolithic Dome house has a 17-foot ceiling and an alternating step staircase (called a monk’s ladder) that leads up to the attic.

Janet Miller | For AnnArbor.com

Clark said he agreed to put his home on tour as an incentive for himself to spruce it up. Clark and his wife, Laura, are thinking about moving back to Texas and may put the house on the market next year.

When Clark began building the house in 1995, it was one of only a handful of Monolithic Dome buildings in the country. He did about 60 percent of the work on the house.

Now there are hundreds of them, he said. They are homes and cabins, churches (there’s one in Allen Park), offices and schools.

Clark started by building a ring of concrete for the foundation and then inflating a giant airform made of vinyl and polyester purchased from Monolithic Dome.

“It was like a big balloon, hooked up to a fan that blew it up,” Clark said. The airform became the exterior and all of the construction was done from the inside. Insulation was sprayed and a metal reinforced concrete system built.

Clark left the walls rough to save on the expense of smoothing them out. “We left them natural and we’ve gotten to where we like them,” he said.

The house, from the outside, appears small, Clark said. But most visitors are surprised by how much space there is inside. There are three levels with about 2,000 square feet of living space, Clark said.

The master bedroom on the second level has 17-foot ceiling and the alternating step staircase (called a monk’s ladder) leading up to the attic is a space-saver, Clark said.

Dome homes are efficient -- using about half the energy of a conventional house. That was the lure for Clark. He has two heat sources: When he uses propane to heat the house in the winter, it costs about $100 a month.

And dome homes are nearly invincible to tornados and hurricanes, Clark said, making them ideal for storm prone coastal areas such as New Orleans.

Clark’s dome home is known as the credit card house in the Monolitic Dome circles. Clark financed the house by putting building materials on his credit card.

When he began construction, his bank financing has fallen through. Because they are unique, they are hard to appraise, making mortgages difficult, Clark said. He applied for numerous credit cards, and charged the building materials at home stores and lumberyards.

Once the house was built, Clark was approved for a home equity loan.

“The bank considered the house paid for,” Clark said, “and gave us a home equity loan, which didn’t require an appraisal.”

He used the loan to pay off the credit card debt.

The house will be open for the free tour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 15. It is located at 5299 W. Ellsworth Road.