Invisible House Is the World’s Most Famous Smart, Eco-Friendly, and Modern Desert Home

The Invisible House, which is also referred to as the Joshua Tree Invisible House, is all these things. It’s a container home only if you know its origin story and given its resemblance to one in shape, but it’s designed to be as sustainable as possible and with minimal impact on its rough surroundings. The Invisible House is a piece of art, the biggest optical illusion in modern architecture, and a celebrity all on its own, after attracting the attention of some of the biggest stars out there.

As it so happens, it is also for sale for the first time since it was completed. If you have $18 million to spare and would consider making the inhospitable desert your home, now would be a good time to plan a permanent relocation. And you would do it with the most famous smart and sustainable home in the world, as well as the most Instagrammable.

The Invisible House is a good example of how you can make architecture blend into the environment with minimal disruption. In the context of the impact man has on nature through everything he does and the need to implement more sustainable policies, building a family home in the middle of the desert might seem counter-intuitive to the whole sustainability discussion. That’s not to say that it can’t be done – especially if you have no budget limit and all the time in the world.

Ironically, the Invisible House started out when the owners, Chris and Roberta Hanley, were informed that their off-grid container home in the Mojave Desert, in Joshua Tree, California, was illegal. At the time (the early 2010s), regulations said that homes had to be at least 20 feet (6 meters) wide, which their 720 square-foot (66.8 square-meter) home wasn’t. So they had to build something bigger if they wanted to keep having a vacation home on the land.

If the Hanley name rings a bell, it’s because they’re what you might call Hollywood elite: they’re the producers behind hits like American Psycho, music producers who have worked with the likes of Keith Richards, and respected artists who used to call Andy Warhol a good friend. They had all the connections, time, and resources to build something bigger – so they made sure that something turned out to be just what they wanted it to be.

A larger plot of land was acquired and Hanley looked to the iconic 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith for inspiration, with help from Los Angeles architect Tomas Osinski. Hanley wanted something that resembled a skyscraper laid out on the ground, that would bring to mind the original container home they had enjoyed and, most importantly, that would blend in with the environment. True to its name, the Invisible House doesn’t just “blend in:” it completely disappears into its surroundings and, depending on the time of day, weather and angle, looks different every time you look at it.

Construction didn’t start until 2013, and would only be completed in 2019, after many millions were spent and massive efforts were made to turn the Hanleys’ dream into reality. The result is a very striking one: a 225-foot (68.5-meter) long rectangular structure cantilevered on one end over boulders, completely encased in reflective glass that turns it into a giant mirror whichever way you look at it, and with all the modern amenities imaginable inside.

The home offers 5,500 square feet (511 square meters) of living space, three bedrooms and four bathrooms, an indoor pool that runs its entire length, seamless entertaining spaces, a cinema room, a chef’s kitchen, and a master suite that floats over the boulders in the cantilevered part. Equally as spectacular as its mirrored surface is that the home can open to the exterior on three sides.

Invisible House is a smart home, creating its own ecosystem for residents inside. The facade is wrapped in heat-reflecting Solarcool glass, which filters ultraviolet rays and infrared frequencies, and protects those inside from the harsh temperatures outside. The glass alone cost over $700,000 and took more than a year to ship and install in the desert, Hanley once said. Matching the glass facade is the master bed, which features a spectacular 2,500-pound glass base. Invisible house, invisible furniture.

The roof has eco-friendly foam insulation, and features solar panels connected to three 13kw Powerwall Batteries. There are thermal heat panels for hot water and interior heating, and a thermal pool heater. There is water filtration, and Orsini HEPA filters for dust, bacteria, and virus eradication, and several pool filters. You could probably survive a zombie apocalypse inside, and you’d even get high-speed internet, with Starlink, Mojave Wi-Fi and Flashbyte connections.

The Hanleys are now selling Invisible House because they want to start working on a new project. They used it as a permanent residence in the first round of lockdowns, but it has since become a very famous Californian landmark, attracting celebrities from all walks of life, from Influencers and travel vloggers to entertainers like Demi Lovato, Lizzo, and Diplo. Lovato “saw aliens” while staying there, so how’s that for an immersive experience in nature? Even the late Ken Block stayed at the Invisible House when he took a 2022 RAM TRX Sandblast Edition to Johnson Valley in the summer of 2022, and he duly enjoyed the experience, as the second video below will show.

According to Chris Hanley, Andy Warhol also provided inspiration for the unique structure, since he used to say that nature is the best form of art. What better way to honor it than by having it reflect against a man-made structure? A structure that took so much money and so much effort “and you can’t even see it,” as Hanley and Osinski would often joke.