Dome home, bubble home, shell house, airform house: There are many names for the affordable housing prototype created by the Southern California architect Wallace Neff after World War II.

Mr. Neff’s innovative “airform” construction used a giant inflated balloon topped with sprayed gunite (a type of concrete sometimes used to line swimming pools) to create a
futuristic-looking dome very quickly and cheaply, as he sought to address postwar housing shortages. The unconventional design was later abandoned, and most of Mr. Neff’s airform homes have since been demolished. The sole surviving bubble house in the United States is now for sale in Pasadena, Calif., listed at $2 million. (As of this posting, the house is in escrow.)

Mr. Neff, who is known for Spanish-Mediterranean-style estates created for Hollywood icons like Judy Garland, Groucho Marx, and Charlie Chaplin, built this experimental home for his brother Jeff. The detached building is about 1,000 square feet and has one bedroom and a bathroom.

The minimalist two-bedroom, one-bathroom home has 1,204 square feet of curved
interior space and sits on a lot just shy of 9,000 square feet. The property also has a
1,000-square-foot detached studio (which is not a dome).

The home suffered some updates over the decades — including a modification of an interior wall — that altered the original curvy concept inside. But it has since been lovingly restored by the current owners, who complete the restoration as a labor of love, bringing back the interior curved walls. The largest room in the house is the living room, which has a central fireplace with a hanging chimney.

And then there’s a bomb shelter, which was added some 15 feet below the studio in the early 1960s, a clear nod to the Cold War era, and using the same balloon and pneumatic- sprayed concrete approach. It could be a potential recording studio or wine cellar.

The galley kitchen is compact. The only bathroom in the dome house keeps with the circular theme, with porthole windows in the shower. The main bedroom is in the bubble house — the other bedroom in the ADU is currently set up as an office.

Mr. Neff considered the bubble houses his greatest achievement. So why were his dome homes torn down? Probably because the minimalism and spatial efficiency challenge some, and most people are accustomed to living in 90-degree angled, box-shaped rooms.