Jetsons: Meet the Johnstones

By working and living in Seattle, the Space Needle is a daily reminder that this Jetsons-like structure is still unique after all these years. It can make a full rotation in an hour, giving sightseers and diners a lovely panorama of Seattle. On the residential front, San Diego’s Al and Janet Johnstone are the real-life Jetsons. They began construction on their Rotating Home in 2000 and as Al tells me, "We are 6 years into the 10 year plan — that being said, you have to understand the I am the Architect, Inventor, Engineer, Building Contractor and Janet and I have done about 75% of the physical work in building our home."

The beauty of the Johnstones’ home is that it can "…rotate as many times as we would like in either direction while always being connected to all utilities, rotating or not and meets 21st century building codes." According to Al, "… there are 5 other fully rotating homes that have been built in the US, they are all much smaller and none of them meet current building codes, they are either a motorhome on a stick (holding tanks) or have open troughs for a sewer system." (Motorhome on a stick? Open troughs for a sewer system? Oy vey.)

The secret to the Johnstones’ creation is The Swivel technology which is the central core that everything passes through — telephone, cable, electrical, plumbing, gas — everything. The Johnstones have a patent for the technology and will consult on a project and will sell the specialty parts to build a rotating home, but they are not in the business of building rotating homes.

While our data accuracy is pretty strong in San Diego, the Zestimate we have for their home cannot do it justice without some tinkering with the My Zestimator tool. Al said "Several friends in the field have estimated its value at about $4,000,000.00." I would gladly go ahead and do my own estimate on his place, except I don’t know the specific costs for 4.8 KW of photovoltaics, the gray water system, floodable roof (for fire protection and insulation), unique heating and cooling system, lighting and rotation controlled by computer with voice activation, turntables in the garage so the first two cars never have to back out, and several other features. And I thought my motion-activated light in my backyard was cutting-edge.

When I asked him if he would do anything differently next time around, he said, "Make my wife’s walk-in closet larger, however, I’m not sure I could ever build one big enough to solve that problem!" Al: There are two things that will always win a woman’s heart: Let her buy as many shoes as she wants and give her a closet big enough to live in.

Non-sequitur: If the Johnstones have a lazy susan on their kitchen table and it’s spun 3 mph counter-clockwise and the home is spinning 3 mph clockwise, does that mean the lazy susan doesn’t spin?