A man who worked in the software development industry for 20 years made his dream a reality by buying a plot of land at an airport and building his ideal home from two retired jet planes. The $250,000 project has taken a decade of perseverance and a firm belief that the fun is in the journey, not the destination.
Captain Joe Axline, 61, lives in Brookshire, Texas. At the age of 50, he got divorced and with few precious possessions but a buoyant savings account to facilitate his dream, he knew the time was right.
“All my friends said, ‘You should buy a house and be done with it. Don’t do this, this is a waste of time and effort!’” Axline told The Epoch Times. “I was like, ‘Well, you know what, I’ve had five new homes I’ve built from the ground up, I don’t need to go through that experience. I want to do something fun.’”
‘Project Freedom’
Axline bought two acres of land at Sport Flyers Airport. With the help of a man named Dave Drimmer, who built his own unique “cosmic muffin” home from a Howard Hughes airplane, Axline found a retired plane at a mall in Sawgrass Mills, Florida, which he bought and nicknamed “Spirit.” He later bought a second plane out of Arkansas that he nicknamed, “Freedom,” in December 2011.Axline named his special endeavor “Project Freedom” since it represents his free exploration of a long-held dream.
He had both planes, an SEDDT and a McDonnell Douglas N813ME, by January 2012 and started the renovation.
Describing his 600-square-foot cabin, Axline said he has the cockpit in the front, which is followed by a 180-square-foot master bedroom that has a queen size bed and a couple of televisions.
The passage that follows has a bathroom with a shower, toilet, and sink. Axline also has two twin-size beds of which one is functional and the other is converted into a fish hatchery.
“From there, I have the refrigerator and then a kitchen countertop. Across from that is the dining room, then the living room. Across from that is my office,” he said.
The Inspiration
The inspiration for Project Freedom actually came in 1973, when Axline was a teenager.
“There was a show called ‘The Magician’ with Bill Bixby,” he said. “In this show, [Bill] would use his magical skills to solve crimes, and then he would drive his Corvette into the back of his airplane and fly to the next city. That is exactly what I wanted to do.”
As a teenager, Axline had no idea when and how he could make this possible but he for sure knew “why” he wanted to do it.
Soon, Axline solicited the help of his father to build an airplane called “The Skycycle.”
“We got measurements and stuff, we got the wings, but it never got off the ground. But it was a lot of fun to do,” he said.
At the age of 16, Axline received the medical certificate he needed to start flying planes. He had accumulated almost 100 hours by the time he got his license at the age of 18. Axline later redesigned The Skycycle, one of only a few precious belongings he took with him to Texas after his divorce.
In 2011, coming out of 23 years of marriage, Axline began looking for properties to make Project Freedom a reality. After he found a loophole in the stipulations of the Texas Homeowners’ Association, he bought a piece of property at Sport Flyers—an aviation community where people live on each side of the property. He moved the first plane to his new plot with the help of a courier experienced in moving large boats, making it his main living quarters
They also chopped the $10,000 transport fee in half by cutting 5 feet from the end of the 65-foot plane.
‘Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Backward’
The plane was “totally a mess” at the outset, Axline said, comparing it to a car where you roll the windows down, and let it sit there for five years.
For the duration of the ambitious project, he was supported by his siblings. One of his brothers, an electrical engineer who built a unique 5,000-square-foot home comprising six domes, helped Axline install the electricity. Axline installed the water and sewer plumbing himself.
He built stairs out of railroad ties to reach the plane’s door 7 feet above ground level. He raised the ceiling and replaced the insulation to avoid a “claustrophobic” feeling, but kept some of the overhead bins to remind himself that he still lived in an airplane.
Reflecting on the project’s success, he said a written plan kept him on track.
“Every day, there was something that had to happen,” Axline said. He broke it down to the simplest things, which were getting water, sewer, and electricity.
Nonetheless, the first two years, he said, felt like he was moving “two steps forward, three steps backward.” A stressed-out Axline even fell ill with shingles. Money was never a major concern, but from his $250,000 starting budget, he says there’s nothing left.
His son and daughter were regular visitors to the site as the dream home came to fruition. Each has their own bed inside the finished home but when they were younger, it was a challenge for Axline to navigate their needs while working on the plane.
A Home for Life
It wasn’t until November 2012 that Axline officially moved in. Since then, he has been working on expanding and finessing his home.
Axline told The Epoch Times, “A lot of things will happen in the future.”
He aims to put in a hangar so that when he walks on the patio he will be able to look down and see the airplane.
“The way that it’s designed is the ceiling or the roof will be solar panels. And so when you drive by, you‘ll be able to see the plane, it’ll look like it’s coming out of that hangar,” he said.
Meanwhile, for the current 20-foot patio, Axline plans to expand and build a greenhouse.
“I do hydroponics, microgreens, as well as potted plants,” he said. “I‘ll have 1,200 plants growing in the process so that I’ll be able to eat the plants.”
This will include avocados, lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, hatch peppers, and myriad other edible vegetables.
Axline also plans to farm tilapia fish, quails, and rabbits in the future.
Meanwhile, for the other plane, he said the wings won’t exactly be attached.
“They‘ll have three posts on them, so you’ll be able to walk out on them to get to the airplane,” he said.
In response to people driving by with their thumbs up, or exclaiming how cool Axline’s home is, the 61-year-old ran Airbnb “experience” tours for a while to show off his renovation. Over the years, he has welcomed guests from as far away as the UK, Australia, and New Zealand and loves to share his story to inspire creativity in others.
“The purpose of this is to let them see how they could change their life by doing what they want,” Axline said. “The thrill of life is not reaching the dream, it is the journey to get to the dream!”
