The builders, Jacques Abelman, Nik Bertulis and Aysha Massel , were pushing two extremes of tradition construction and materials in an experimental project to assemble and build a fully living structure in Seneca, South Carolina.
Rural Studio
The Rural Studio has built several works of rammed-earth architecture including the Mason’s Bend Community Center (above), and the Sanders-Dudley House.
Ronald Reagan
Rancho del Cielo, the former Western White House of the former president Ronald Reagan, where he spent more than a full year of his eight years in office, was first named Rancho de los Picos after Spanish settler Jose Jesus Pico, the last Mexican Governor of Alta California, who moved north from Mexico and built the original adobe house in 1871. The Pico family owned the property until 1941, when it was sold to Frank Flournoy for $6,000, who named the property Tip Top Ranch. In 1955, Roy and Rosalie Cornelius bought the ranch and purchased additional land to add to the property. The Reagans bought the 680-acre ranch in 1974 for $527,000, when Reagan’s second term as governor of California was coming to an end. The Young America’s Foundation bought the Ranch in 1998 to preserve it as an historical site.
Oldest House (in the USA?)
“THE OLDEST HOUSE IN U.S.A.”, Santa Fe, New Mexico. This house, across the lane from San Miguel Mission is built of puddled adobe and is believed to be pre-Spanish, built in circa 1200 A.D. in the Pueblo of Analco. This house is the last remnant of that Pueblo that occupied much of the area on the south side of the Santa Fe River.
UPDATE (03/2026): Called the De Vargas Street House now, This claim is now widely disputed, with other websites including SWD citing that it was built around 1643, but with it foundations dating back to 1200. Older, continuously inhabited structures have also been found to exist, such as the Taos Pueblo and Acoma Pueblo, which date back to roughly 1000–1200 AD.