R. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome is shown overlooking Woods Hole Harbor.

If all goes as planned in the pastoral seaside village of Woods Hole on Cape Cod, home to the celebrated Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, another world-renowned institution of sorts will be preserved—what is believed to be the world’s first geodesic dome built for commercial use.

The genius of renowned visionary and designer R. Buckminster Fuller – whose life and work are now on display at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art through September – was constructed in 1954 as a restaurant for the Nautilus Motor Inn overlooking Woods Hole Harbor, and is one of only a handful of surviving original geodesic dome structures today.

The Woods Hole dome is to be preserved and restored to its former understated elegance as part of an innovative, equity ownership independent living senior housing project with a full range of concierge services and amenities, proposed by Chatham’s Chris Wise of Wise Living.

The dome is rare because of the hyperbolic paraboloid design of its framework. In true Fuller genre, it was designed to swathe the 54-foot diameter dome with the least amount of materials; geodesic domes, in fact, cover more space with less material than any known structure. The iconoclast Fuller, “Bucky” to his friends and the subject of recent profiles in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Newsweek, developed and patented the geodesic dome in the early 1950s, the prototype for his most famous dome structures, including the Kaiser Dome in Hawaii, the U.S. Pavilion at the Montreal Expo ’67, and the recently demolished Baton Rouge Dome.

Perhaps the world’s most recognized geodesic dome is “Spaceship Earth” at Epcot Center in Walt Disney World, Fuller’s moniker for the planet, although Fuller did not design it.

The Woods Hole dome, patented under the name “Laminar Dome,” is unique in that its structure is based on a folded diamond pattern that allowed for the prefabrication of lightweight panels that could be assembled quickly on site. It is historically significant because it represents the construction of an experimental geodesic design in the infancy of the dome design process.

Working closely with the Historic Preservation Division of the Cape Cod Commission, the Massachusetts Historic Commission and architect Deacon Marvel (Fuller’s great-nephew), Wise Living plans to stabilize and restore the dome in disrepair for use as a multi-purpose space for a proposed 43-unit, senior residential housing project that in to-day’s commercial real estate market is among the highest value and best use for a hotel/motel conversion. The dome, when restored, will be open to the public on a limited basis for viewing.

The late Fuller – an inventor with more than 27 patents; a prolific writer, artist and thinker; philosopher and sociologist; architect and engineer without a license; university professor without a college degree, who had been tossed out of Harvard twice for indiscretions; and the father of the blimp-like Dymaxion Vehicle – was a Renaissance man in full Monty. He was a bit troubled, offbeat and yet forever at creative tilt.

Born in Milton into one of New England’s most august and freethinking families, his great-grandfather, the Rev. Timothy Fuller, was a Massachusetts delegate to the Federal Constitutional Assembly, who was so incensed over the Constitution’s consent to slavery that he voted against ratification. His great aunt, Margaret Fuller, a friend of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, was the nation’s first female foreign correspondent.

Fuller, who attended Milton Academy before heading off to Harvard and into the history books, died in 1983 at the age of 88 at his wife’s bedside while she was in a coma. His wife, Anne, died several hours later, Fuller was “a global thinker, a remarkable and truly gifted man with universal and overlapping talents,” says his grand nephew Marvel, an architect and principal in the Boston firm of C&R Rizvi. Marvel, the family overseer of Fuller’s Woods Hole dome legacy, spent much time as a youth with his grand uncle at the family summer compound on Bear Island in Maine where several experimental Fuller domes were built.

“He was very personable and engaging to all the children; he was a family man,” recalls Marvel. “He carried a running dialogue, holding court on numerous and contrasting issues, compelling in all ways.”

Fuller, the father of two children, also was an avid yachtsman, and had a 41-foot Morgan sloop, called Intuition, on which he sailed every year from New York to Maine, and included nieces and nephews on day trips off the rugged Maine coast.

“He affected my life in indirect and unforgettable ways,” Marvel adds.
And he influenced many with his pursuit of the impossible. “I’m not a genius,” Fuller once said. “I’m a tremendous bundle of experience.”

Greg O’Brien is a freelance writer living on Cape Cod, and is the author/editor of several books.