The Spaceship Home

Hovering above the Iowa prairie, at the edge of ordinary and imagined, sits a home that looks less like it was built—and more like it landed.

On a quiet stretch of land in Urbandale, framed by cornfields and sky, rises a circular, steel-and-concrete marvel: the private home of LeMar Koethe. Part midwestern farmhouse, part futuristic dreamscape, this isn’t the kind of place you stumble upon. It’s the kind of place you remember.

Koethe didn’t set out to build a spaceship. He set out to build a statement—a high-rise on a horizon of his own making. By the time construction wrapped in 1993, what stood wasn’t just a house, but a vision: a gleaming disc of modernism, balanced atop sixteen piers, with a spiral staircase climbing 35 feet through its core like the spine of some living thing. From its perch, you can see for miles. But it’s not the view that lingers—it’s the ambition.

A self-made millionaire and Iowa native, LeMar Koethe earned his fortune not in architecture, but in acres—fifty-four farms, to be exact—sprawling with soybeans and corn. Yet his roots were humble, built door-to-door, sale by sale, until he could afford to create something completely his own. What he built wasn’t just a home—it was a question posed in steel and concrete: What if we lived in the future, right now?

Inside, the home is more than its shape. There’s a circular balcony wrapping the living space in panoramic glass, a private art gallery tucked beside a recreation hall, and a six-thousand-square-foot garage below—complete with a wash bay and a mirrored ceiling that reflects the passing years. It's part James Bond, part Americana. Strange, bold, utterly unique.

Over time, the house has become something of a legend—a whisper on architecture blogs, a landmark for locals, a curiosity for passersby. Some call it “the spaceship house.” Others just call it Koethe’s. But no one forgets it.

This is not a home built for comfort alone. It was built to be remembered. To ask something of those who see it. To suggest, even in the quiet suburbs of Iowa, that there’s still room for dreams. Big ones. Round ones. Dreams that float, even if they’re bolted to the ground.

Here, in the shadow of silos and storm clouds, stands a place where imagination met Midwest earth and held fast. Where a farmer didn’t just plant seeds—but ideas. And where a house doesn’t just reflect its owner—it reveals him.