Making A Walipini - Underground Greenhouse

What the heck is a Walipini Greenhouse anyway?

In the 1990s, a philanthropic arm of the Mormon Church called the Benson Institute started an unusual project. A group of volunteers constructed a prototype underground greenhouse for farmers near La Paz, Bolivia. They called the design a ‘Walipini’, meaning place of warmth in the local language. A simple pit with plastic sheeting as a roof, the design minimized costs, while aiming to create a more energy-efficient greenhouse for year-round growing using the stable temperatures of the soil underground. Mother Earth News

Simple enough right.... sounds good too, and depending on the type of soil you have it looks relatively easy to build! Here's a pretty PDF on the Walipini Construction from the Benson Agriculture and Food Institute. Read it with a grain of salt because there are a couple important facts in there that either I've interpreted wrong or they've been translated funny, like the sun rising in the West and setting in the East! The diagrams give you a good idea of why these things make sense regardless of whether they think the earth is flat or the sun rises somewhere other than we've been able to observe.

Some months after closing on the property we're developing into an anarchist ecovillage of sorts, we ran into a piece of history we cannot yet figure out. It's a structure that looks like it could have been a foundation but being so close to the town's existing water tower, my mind keeps wondering if it was the old water storage.

The Building Department

So, there's this property tax thing, we have to pay... I'm sure most of you know about forced voluntarism. The day I went to town to hand over my money I decided to also investigate a little and so I walked into the building department's office with a few questions. The oldest survey they could find was the same one I already had, which doesn't have this structure... There are no registered structures anywhere on the property.

I was lost and told the nice lady behind the counter that I was looking to see what this old construction might have been. It's kind of difficult to let go of that fear of consequences from the department of making you sad, but I did. I explained to her that I thought perhaps, before these properties were subdivided, it was owned by the town's water and sewage department, and that the structure may have been the old water storage/tower.

She was happy to help and pointed me towards this older gentleman who had worked for the Water and Sewage most of his life. I found him at the barbershop she said I could most likely run into him, and we started talking. When I asked about that water tower, a smile lit up his face and you could see all the memories rushing through his mind, it was pretty cool!

He did not remember that structure but he said it couldn't have been a water tower because it wasn't round... I'm not really convinced because just like the larger circular tower, it has bellow it another, smaller container with a trap door at ground level. He did tell me however that back in the day there were rumors of an ice-house somewhere up on that hill.

So I'm back at square one except that the bricks are marked LENT and so far I found this map. Along with what the old man told me, he remembered the remains of an old brick yard near his home in Glasco, owned and operated by the Lent family:

And this:

The branded LENT brick was made by Robert Lent in Coeymans, NY who operated a yard between 1904 and 1920. Robert was born at Glasco, N. Y. on November 22, 1892, He came from a family of brickmakers. His grandfather ROBERT LENT was born at Highland Mills, Orange County, N. Y. on May 3, 1828 and was a brick manufacturer at Glasco, Ulster County, N. Y. He married Catherine Conklin, of Orange County, N. Y., November 20, 1852, at Matteawan, N. Y. Children:

DAVIS CALEB LENT, born at Naugatuck, New Haven Co., Conn., Oct. 31, 1854, He is manager of the *Denning's Point Brick Works. Mr. Lent was the first to burn brick with anthracite coal, which was done on his father's yard at Glasco. He has thorough business abilities, and is one who understands the brick making industry in all its details perfectly. He was married to Mary E. Seaman, of Ulster County, N. Y.,

JOHN WRIGHT LENT, born at Naugatuck, New Haven, Co., Ct, March 9, 1859, He is manager of his father's brick making business at Glasco, N. Y.

WILLIAM LEWIS LENT, born at Naugatuck, New Haven Co., Ct.,
August 20, 1863, He is engineer for the Denning's Point Brick Works. He married Mary E. Felter, of
Ulster County, N. Y.

Source: "History of the Lent family in the United States, genealogical and biographical." (1903) by Nelson Burton Lent

Now the question is, what do we do with all this?

So, one idea is to build a quick shelter that would be a nice place for my family to spend winter in... while it could be a great idea, it may not be an easy task and probably not that cheap either. Oh and I don't really think my wife wants to live in a cave at the moment!

Another idea was to seal it and turn it into a pool. While I like this idea quite a lot, I'm afraid the structure may not be as strong as it used to be and being up hill from one neighbor, I can only imagine how surprised they would be to have several tens of thousands of gallons suddenly rush in to their living-room!

How about the underground greenhouse idea? I think this one may be the winner, it's as if we had a perfect rectangle already dug, just waiting for us to clean it up, make sure the walls won't cave in, build rafter and make a Walipini!!!

I will continue to investigate, I would like to know what the history behind this thing is. And you can be assured that I'll post about it when I find out more!