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By Vicki Godal Malibu Times Magazine, April/May 2005 Issue
Humans have used caves for thousands of years, first as shelter, then later as storage. During the Roman Empire, citizens began storing wine in the natural catacombs located under the city. The first wine caves in France were abandoned limestone excavation sites left behind by the Romans. By the first century, digging caves for specific purposes such as storing and aging wines was common. Wherever wine was made, wine caves followed. Caves can be found throughout Europe and worldwide. Many of these abandoned caves now have a new purpose. In Hungary, a large former wine cave is now a restaurant. Off the coast of Greece in the islands, cave bars dot the faces of island cliffs. In Malibu, a private cave was designed as an intimate screening room.
However, these caves aren’t just updated versions of the Flinstones’ cartoon cave home. Today’s caves are high-tech, polished living spaces that happen to be a least twenty-five feet under the earth’s surface. Cinematic plasma screens with surround sound, Gothic-style ceilings and recessed stairs with programmable torch lights are among some of the finishing touches used in private caves. There are no prefabricated kits for caves. Each cave is custom designed and built to whatever size and specifications an owner desires. Cave design is as much art as science, with the builder taking the planned use for the cave into consideration right along with the soil conditions.
David Provost, the owner of Bacchus Caves, a cave construction firm in Malibu and Napa Valley and one of a handful of such companies in the United States, said people create caves that define their uniqueness. “There’s something very private about having an underground dining room that you enter through a torch-lit hallway,” Provost said. “Caves give an owner so much leeway for individuality. I’ve built private caves for formal dining rooms, art galleries, libraries and screening rooms.”
Provost sees a potential trend in private caves. “In Napa Valley, the idea of caves is something they’re accustomed to due to the wine industry. Private caves, while not common there, do exist. Here in Malibu, private caves are something new and quite unusual.
“If there’s a culture that cares about their private homes, it’s Malibu,” Provost continued. “Private caves become these incredible personalized rooms. It’s really amazing what can be done.”
Peter, a well known photographer who asked to be referred to by his first name only to protect his privacy, had a cave dug four years ago to use as a screening room and photo gallery. “I have a cave for two reasons,” he said. “From an environmental, ecological standpoint it’s underground as opposed to above ground, so it’s not seen. It doesn’t affect the natural landscape. Second, it’s extremely cost efficient. The cave is thirty feet deep and stays at sixty degrees all the time, requiring no heating or cooling. Additionally, with the Bush Administration running our foreign policy, it may be prudent to have an underground dwelling.”
Building a private cave is as serious an endeavor as building a house, with safety being paramount. After site selection, geotechnical investigations and feasibility reviews come engineering plans and permitting. Construction begins with tunneling and after the tunnel and cave are dug, shotcrete (a process of shooting concrete under high pressure onto surfaces) and other substances coat the tunnel and cave walls to seal them. Caves can be made watertight. Electricity, plumbing and mechanical systems are next. The form the finished cave takes is based completely on what the owner desires. We may be returning to our ancestral stomping grounds, but today’s caves are more than just inhabitable, they’re elegant.
For now, private caves may be a novelty but someday, perhaps, caves will be the condos of the twenty-first century.
Photo Credits: Cave construction begins with tunneling.
Today’s caves are highly polished living spaces that happen to be at least twenty-five feet under the earth’s surface. |
