Recycled 747 Being Used To Build A Unique “Green” Home

Most aged airliners spend their last years sitting in desert compounds before succumbing to the scrappers torch to be melted down and recycled into toasters or soda cans. But according to the San Jose Mercury News, one particular Boeing 747 has embarked onto a more unique retirement -- as a new home in the exclusive Southern California community of Malibu.

Thanks to land owner and builder Francie Rehwald, the parts of the old airliner will provide the materials for Rehwalds new 4,000 square foot home, guest houses, caretaker's residence and a barn on her rolling 55 acre ranch in Malibu. After more than a year of delays, the first part of the house – one of the massive 125 foot wings – arrived at the site slung under a helicopter Thursday.

If you’re thinking this is yet another derelict airliner made into a home in it’s original shape, you’d be mistaken. Though Rehwalds goal is to use every piece of the plane, keeping with her sensibilities as an environmentalist and an admirer of art, the finished product will look nothing like the assembled jumbo jet when complete.

The wings will form roof of the home and an art studio will be made from a piece of the plane's fuselage. A viewing platform where visitors can gaze across the hills toward the Pacific Ocean will be made of the tail. One of the guest houses will be created from the first class lounge that was part of rear of the upper deck on the plane. Even the nose cone will be reused as a meditation pavilion.

"I finally found a client crazy enough and willing enough to do it," joked architect David Hertz of Studio of Environmental Architecture. Hertz and his firm are well-known for building so-called "green" houses out of recycled and natural materials, but this is his first venture into using an old airliner.

The first venture promises to be a costly one too. Though the aircraft itself was a bargain at a price of $40,000, getting it from its location in the Mojave Desert to its final spot in Malibu has been costly. After being cut up into more manageable pieces at the junkyard, the aircraft was transported 100 miles via road to Camarillo Airport where it sat awaiting site preparation. After the aircraft has been moved to Malibu, transportation will have involved approval from 17 government agencies and closing five freeways -- plus one expensive helicopter.

The 125-foot wings could not be trucked to the property due to the twisting turns of the canyons around Malibu. As a result both wings needed to be flown in under a heavy lift helicopter.

"It's costing us $10,000 an hour," to fly them in, said Lucas Goettsche, the project's manager.

Though the plan sounds eccentric and expensive, family and friends of Rehwald say they weren't all that surprised when she told them what she had planned.

"I thought it was a little crazy but in line with my mom. She's quite a character," laughs Rehwald's daughter, Minka Marcom-Rehwald. "My mom's definitely a hippie at heart.”

FMI: www.studioea.com