Rural Northern California house made of hay listed for $375K

Don’t huff and puff too close to this home.

The small round house in a Northern California forest is built from hay – and now it’s on the market for $375,000, SFGate reported. The Benbow home at 352 Meadow View Road was built in 1997 from hay and stucco, through a method often called straw-bale construction, and includes mosaic countertops made with colorful glass shards and custom woodwork.

“It has a ton of character and is really beautiful,” the listing agent, Somer Wallan with Madrone Realty said. “We see tons of your typical three-bedroom homes, but this has some personality to it.”

In addition to two bedrooms, the home also has an open loft space accessible via steep and uneven steps. “The stairs getting up there are smooth and are sort of more artistic than functional,” Wallan said.

The 1,800-square-foot home needs repairs such as cracking in the bathroom and additional support for the bathtub. The two-acre property also has a small, one-room cabin that is wired for electricity that lacks a bathroom.

“It is cob-style with stucco and wood chunks,” Wallan said. “The doors and windows are really cool, with glass cut, like bottle bottoms, to make the window panes. It has a living roof. You can replant the roof with whatever you want to grow up there.”

While the property is far from civilization, it’s on the city grid and has access to water and power.

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[SFG] — Victoria Pruitt