MOOREFIELD, Neb. (AP) - It’s not just Egypt and South America that sport pyramids - there is one right in the middle of Moorefield.
Mark Smith and his wife, Gaylene, have been building a pyramid in their yard. Although they have a ways to go to complete it, it has drawn some attention on Facebook recently.
“I started building this in 2008, ’09, something like that,” Smith told The North Platte Telegraph. “Whenever I get it done - it could be awhile.”
The idea sparked as Smith studied various structures and their longevity.
“When you look around the world, the only thing that’s still standing like it was built are the pyramids,” Smith said. “They’re in the oceans in Japan, they’re in the jungles of Mexico and in the deserts of the Middle East.”
His thought was the pyramid structure would withstand all types of wind and weather.
“Out here where possibly you might have tornadoes and such, this design is unlike other buildings,” Smith said. “On regular buildings, when the wind hits, it’s going to collapse because there’s nowhere for the wind to go when it hits a flat wall.”
Smith said he was going to build the pyramid out in the middle of nowhere rather than in the middle of town.
“But land is too expensive, so we found this spot,” Smith said. “Given the tax rules, a storm shelter is not technically a building that can be taxed, according to the county officials I talked with, so if it gets any other use, then they’ll have to get the square feet and charge us accordingly.”
Another aspect, Smith said, is that the walls are all at an angle, and because they are not 8 feet tall from the base of the wall to the top, he said he was told the taxes would be at half the rate.
“Everybody thinks it’s a wooden building and it’s absolutely not,” Smith said. “It’s all concrete and the only thing holding it up is the concrete itself. The wood is just forms for the concrete to cure.”
The pyramid measures 30 feet by 30 feet in every direction, top to bottom and side to side. Smith said he first built a 10-foot pyramid in the backyard.
“It sits on top of what used to be a storm cellar or root cellar,” Smith said. “That’s where I made all my mistakes. Well, I made one mistake when I poured the first layer (of the 30-foot pyramid), but I adjusted and didn’t do that again.”
Being creative and repurposing equipment to help with the project, Smith made good use of an old pickup.
“I had an old Ford pickup and I built a (conveyor) belt from old pieces from an old fertilizer belt,” Smith said. “I poured the cement onto the belt and it went up to the next level and into a wheelbarrow catching it. We dumped that into buckets and had people running around the outside dumping it into the forms, just over and over again.”
He said he had to bribe people to help him.
“I’d pay them $20 an hour and feed them breakfast and lunch,” Smith said. “It’s just a fun thing to do, and nobody else has built one.”
Smith said he has lost a little momentum for finishing the project, but someday he hopes to get the circular staircase in and use it as a place for him and Gaylene to hang out.
Moorefield is about 10 miles east of Curtis.
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