Location Overview

Star is the first Earthship community subdivision that Michael Reynolds founded. It is located about 40 minutes west of Taos, NM at the base of the Tres Orejas Mountain (part of the Sangre de Cristo range), within the Carson National Forest.

Star consists of 13 completely off grid Earthship structures of various sizes and various designs. At the time of this writing, 8 of the structures are occupied by a diverse range of residents with 3 structures available for purchase and 2 more that can very likely be acquired. As a resident of 3 years, I am one of the newest members of the community.

Star was Michael Reynolds' first illegal subdivision where he tried to erect a highly planned community in a top down fashion. Individuals were invited to put in sweat labor on their own structures in exchange for ownership. The original designs included a commercial street with a general store, materials exchange, a barter/swap market, and a community hub. None of that was ever built. The housing plots were originally conceived as circles, which was obviously a bad idea. The builders had sovereignty over their home, but once they stepped out of the house the land was owned by Reynolds. This semi-planned community used the language of sovereignty and decentralization based on collective convivial ownership, but this veiled a top-down hierarchy and highly centralized power flex by Reynolds. In the end, Reynolds seemed to own everything while being responsible for hardly anything, leading the residents to secede from his direction and dissolve as a community.

The original HOA documents have been archived by neighbors that have lived out here from the beginning. One of our first steps should be to review this document to ensure that the traumas are not repeated in our attempts to revitalize the life in their neighborhood.