Dome Homes, Marco Island, Florida


The Cape Romano Dome House is an abandoned house consisting of six dome-shaped modules on stilts, located approximately 300 feet offshore from Cape Romano Island (as of 2019), south of Marco Island, in the Ten Thousand Islands of Collier County, Florida. It was constructed in 1980 by retired businessman Bob Lee, abandoned in 1992, and sold in 2005 to John Tosto. The structure was never meant to be accessible by boat, and has no landings or docking facilities.

While originally built on Morgan Island and would technically be referred to as the "Morgan Island Dome Home", erosion had filled in the small natural channel (Morgan Pass) between both Morgan and Cape Romano and cut that land from Morgan Island. This resulted in the home being on a different island than where it was originally built.

Bob Lee, a now-deceased retired oil producer, spent much of the years 1978 and 1979 surveying and purchasing land on Morgan Island in hopes of constructing a vacation home. He eventually purchased four adjacent plots of land for his project. In 1980, Lee began constructing the home, which was a white-painted concrete structure. He purchased a barge to transport supplies for the building. The house consisted of six stout, interconnected dome structures, which made up the rooms of the house, and some of which had two levels. It was 2,400 square feet and featured three bedrooms and three bathrooms.

By 2013, the house was sitting in six-feet-deep water. That same year, Florida Weekly reporter Cynthia Mott wrote in an article that while snorkeling at the site, she discovered the ruins now served as a reef, with diverse marine life.

In 2015, a movement was started to move the domes deeper to a location where they could safely become an underwater reef as part of Florida's history. But the movement did not get funded. 

By 2016, the house was approximately 180 feet (55 meters) offshore and was becoming widely known attracting more tourists.


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