SCOTTY’S JUNCTION, Nev.

NEIGHBORS are few out here in the high desert of Nevada, where Fabrizio Rondolino, an Italian journalist, built his dream home. There was a fellow one lot over who, after reportedly hearing instructions from above, built a chapel. But possibly the voice subsequently hollered down, “Just kidding!” for while the chapel remains, the owner’s trailer is gone. There is also the Shady Lady Ranch, a bordello (legal in these parts) about seven miles down the road. Being an outgoing and friendly sort, Mr. Rondolino took his wife and two daughters, both under 21 at the time, to say hello, soon after they bought their land a few years ago.

“I was locking the car, and my wife and two girls ring the bell,” Mr. Rondolino remembers. “And the guy opened the door, and they saw two girls and a lady.” The man seemed to think they were looking for a job, and he told them several times that no under-age girls were allowed in the house. Then Mr. Rondolino arrived and informed him they were the new neighbors. The man wasn’t very friendly, Mr. Rondolino recalls. He said, “Good luck,” and that was that.

But bordellos and mystics are not the first thing an Easterner wants to know about after arriving on this stretch of land 150 miles north of Las Vegas, not far from Death Valley, on a scorching summer day. The first thing one wants to know is whether there are rattlesnakes. The answer, from Peter Strzebniok, the architect who built this house and is also visiting on this day: no, it is too hot. Rattlesnakes prefer the shade.

The next question — the big one — is for the owner: Why would he build a house in the middle of the scorching nowhere?