The Only Guy Out There

Ivo Zdarsky escaped from Communist Czechoslovakia in 1984 by building his own airplane and flying to Austria in the middle of the night. Since then, he moved the the US and bought a ghost town. Lucin, Utah, has no other residents anymore. Zdarsky lives alone in an airplane hangar, where he makes airplane propellors for a living. He flies to Ogden for groceries or to Salt Lake City to see his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Zdarsky is living large in the ultimate man cave.

His home is divided into two 50-by-50-foot areas: one is for his planes, the other is his living space (the bathroom is a separate room). “I notice most people have a house which is usually smaller than my room,” Mr. Zdarsky says. “And inside this house is a bunch of little rooms, called bedroom, living room, whatever. If they want to do something on a computer you have to go in one room, you go to eat in another room. I have just one room, and I can watch the TV here, watch the computer here, eat here, and it is not claustrophobic.”

He points at one of the motorized hinged hangar doors, which can lift 10 feet off the ground. “If I need a bigger window, I can lift this.”

Read more about Zdarsky and his one-man town at The New York Times. Link -via reddit

(Image credit: John Burcham for The New York Times)