The Cape Romano Dome House was an abandoned house consisting of six dome-shaped modules on stilts. The house is situated among the Ten Thousand Islands in Collier County, Florida, about 300 feet offshore from Cape Romano Island and south of Marco Island.
Cape Romano Dome house was built in 1982 by Bob Lee. Bob Lee is a retired independent oil producer.
Lee started constructing the house in 1980. The house was a concrete building with white paint, the rooms of the house were built up of six substantial, connected dome constructions, some of which had two floors. It had three bedrooms and three baths, and it was 2,400 square feet.
The house was initially constructed as a holiday home for Bob Lee, his wife, and their kids.
In 1984, the family sold the house to another family, two years after it was finished. In 1987, the Lee family took back the house
The Lees repossessed the house in 1987, and because of financial problems, it became their principal residence. They renovated the interior and lived in the house until 1992.
In 1992, the house was damaged by Hurricane Andrew. The exterior and foundation were scratched, while the interior was destroyed. The Lee family moved away after this event.
In 2005, Bob Lee sold the house to a man from Naples, for $300,000. The new owner wanted to renovate the house by lifting it using a crane and placing it on tall concrete pillars on a higher piece of ground on the island.
A few months after buying the property, Hurricane Wilma made land erosion and foundation instability worse. This didn't stop the man from renovating the house. Unfortunately, because protected bird nesting seasons interfered, he was unable to produce all of the required permissions to start construction.
The owner faced many regulatory bodies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Environmental Protection, and the Collier County Code Building and Enforcement Departments.
The Collier County Code Enforcement Board declared the building hazardous in 2007 and ordered the owners to demolish it within two years. He received a $187,000 fine in November 2009 for failing to get the house demolished on time.
The house became officially abandoned
In 2009, the pillars supporting the house's foundation were submerged. Officially abandoned, the home still occasionally received visitors from youths and fishermen. The building was never demolished.
In 2013, it was found that the ruins became a reef and home to a variety of marine life.
In 2015, a campaign to relocate the domes to a safe place for reef development started.
In September 2017, Hurricane Irma, a Category 3 storm, hit the area, and two of the westernmost domes collapsed into the water, leaving four standing.
The issue involving the domes was resolved by the Collier County Code Enforcement Division in 2018, and ownership was given to the state.
On September 28, 2022, the Cape Romano Dome House became submerged underwater because of Hurricane Ian. Now, only a few of the pilings are still visible above the sea.
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