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Chattanooga: A house built in the shape of a flying saucer sold at an auction this week for a bid of US$135,000.
The sale of the 38-year-old, three-bedroom structure perched on six landing gear legs attracted worldwide attention.
Auctioneer Terry Posey says he's surprised bidding didn't go higher. Pearl Johnson of Cincinnati bought the mountainside house, but didn't want to discuss the transaction.
The house built in the shape of a flying saucer appeared on a road to Chattanooga's Signal Mountain in 1970. The circular house — ultramodern when it was built — is ringed with small square windows and directional lights and perched on six "landing gear" legs.
It has multiple levels, three bedrooms, two baths and an entrance staircase that retracts with the push of a button.
A neighbour says that feature came in handy for one former owner who was having an argument with her husband. She pulled up the stairway, drove her husband's truck underneath it so he couldn't get the stairs down and left him stuck inside.
The Chattanooga home's unusual shape — sort of like two white Frisbees pasted together — poses some interior decorating challenges.
The curve of the exterior creates a sloping ceiling and short side walls, but there's also a striking curved bar and a custom bathtub.
The house is larger than the prefabricated and movable UFO-shaped structures, known as Futuro houses, designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1968.
"It really looked like a spaceship ready to take off," said realtor Lois Killebrew, who handled an open house at the first sale of the Chattanooga home decades ago.
The late Curtis W. King and his family built the unusual home because "they liked to do unusual things," Killebrew said.
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