The Houses · H-05

Upper Carniola · Established 1988 · Open to visitors

Karst House keeps better records of itself than any other house, including the one that keeps the archive.

Region

Europe

Residential places

14

Residence

Fourteen places, in periods of seven to twelve days during the reading period; three to seven otherwise.

Recurring form

The house keeps the Open Table, and a lecture in the reading period.

Fabric

The house is step-free throughout at ground level. The cave work is not accessible and is not required of residents.

This is a register entry. No address, telephone line, or arrangement to visit is published here, and none can be taken up through this website.

The house

The house was established in 1988 in a stone building above a sinkhole, with the encouragement of a regional speleological society that wanted somebody living close enough to notice when the water changed colour.

From its first month the house kept a daily log — weather, water, visitors, work done, meals cooked — and it has never missed a day. The logs run to sixty-one bound volumes. Every one has been digitised, indexed, and reconciled; the house's public record is complete to the week.

The translation bench grew out of necessity: the regional archives are in three languages and the correspondence in four. It now translates for other houses as well.

The work

• Cave and watershed stewardship with the regional society: monitoring, clearance, and the water-quality log.
• Translation between Slovene, German, Italian, and English, for the regional archives and for the Institute's own correspondence.
• Custody of the European regional archive, and the summer reading period.

Observance kept here

The shared forms, here

The Boundary Walk

Water first. Sinks, springs, and the two culverts are checked before anything else on the sheet.

The house year

The house, day to day

Soup, buckwheat, and a lot of preserving in September. The kitchen is the warmest room in the building from October and the house meeting has drifted into it twice, which the steward permits and the minutes do not mention.

A 19th-century farmhouse on limestone, with a vaulted ground floor that is cool in summer and difficult to heat in winter. Water is the constant subject: the ground drinks it, and the house's watershed work started because the well ran on a fortnight's delay from the rain.

Rooms

The east table, The paper room, The high garden, and the usual others (12 in all).

In the kitchen

The September jars. Whatever the upper garden gives, in vinegar, in half-litre jars, labelled with the month and not the year — an omission the archivist has objected to in writing on three occasions.

Outstanding

The vault, north bay — Rising damp at 40 cm. Lime-plastered, not sealed, on the surveyor's instruction. Repointed every four years. The stove — Draws badly when the wind is from the east. Cowl fitted; improved and not solved. Steps to the paper room — Eight steps, no room for a lift within the vault. The ground-floor table arrangement is the standing answer and is printed in the directory.

Said here

“With or without?” — Which reading of the comma do you take — and, in the kitchen, salt.

Local custom

The comma. A punctuation dispute of 1981 concerning clause 2 of PRO/1979/06, conducted in two languages, four written opinions, and one tin of slips.

The life of a house

Local participation

• Water and path work after rain, called at short notice.
• The weather entry, written before the evening meal.

Separation

Given to the steward in any language the member prefers to use. No form is required.

A life in the practice
The term a steward holds, and its limits

The steward

Records

• House logs, 1988–

Other houses

• Fell House — Scottish Borders
• Cedar House — Aomori Prefecture

Entry H-05 · reviewed 21 February 2026