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LUCIN, Box Elder County — There are plenty of places in Utah where you can just get away from it all. Most people, though, eventually come back. Ivo Zdarsky isn't one of them.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't like it," Zdarsky said, referring to his Lucin, Utah, home.
Zdarsky's home
Inside the house, you'll find a large, open room with a flat-screen TV, guns and even a drum set. "You can beat on those instead of beating on your neighbors," Zdarsky joked. "Plus, I don't have any neighbors."
That's right: no neighbors. Lucin boasts the remarkable population count of one — Zdarsky.
The town is located in the northwestern part of the state, just east of the Utah-Nevada border. Zdarsky's home is an airplane hangar he built. An electric fence, gate and skull-and-crossbones flag keep curious people away.
"Once they make it to that flag they are so scared they just turn around," Zdarsky said.
But Zdarsky doesn't hate people, he just prefers to be alone and do things his way. Inside his home there are no walls, no windows, and he uses UPS boxes for tables — sort of like a glorified man-cave.
"I didn't know there was a name for it. So it's supposed to be a man cave," Zdarsky asked. "I don't know if you can have a wall in a man cave. I'll have to check on it."
Zdarsky's love
But Zdarsky's true love is his flying machine. "It's supposed to be a helicopter and an airplane in one machine," he said.
Zdarsky, who is originally from Czechoslovakia, built the contraption himself. But he can't find engines strong enough to keep it stable past 125 miles an hour. So, he's busy inventing that too.
"In order to sell it, I have to make it user-friendly," Zdarsky said, "and I cannot make it user-friendly the way it is."
Zdarsky is in the airplane business, making his living designing and making propellers. His company is called IvoProp, and is based in California. It's so successful, he hasn't been back to California in five years.
Zdarsky keeps in touch with his five employees through phone, fax and email — yes, he has high-speed internet in Lucin. As for getting lonely, he says "no way."
"I can always turn on the TV and see people on TV; and if that doesn't work, I can get in a plane and go see people," Zdarsky said.
His girlfriend, who lives in Ogden, visits him every other weekend. He gets supplies from UPS, and the Schwan's food man comes out to his home on a regular basis.
Zdarsky also helps the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office with search and rescue flights.
"We've called him more than once when we've had something happening south of this place here, south of Lucin, and asked him to fly it until we can get out there and get somebody on the ground," Sheriff Lynn Yeates said.
Zdarsky's story of escape
Now, we can end Zdarsky's story right there, and it's a good story about this airplane guy who lives all by himself in the middle of the desert. But here's where his story becomes all the more interesting: it's the "why" he lives out in Lucin. Basically, it's because he didn't want to live under a communist government anymore, so he built his own airplane and flew away.
"I didn't like it (in Czechoslovakia)," Zdarsky said. "It was a communist country, so if you lived there for a while, it was my opinion that you get tired of it very quickly."
The year was 1984, before the fall of communism. Zdarsky didn't like how the Czech government wouldn't let citizens fly airplanes.
"They didn't like that, because if you can fly you can escape," Zdarsky explained.
Still, he built a small airplane. And when he was 24 years old, in the middle of the night, he escaped.
"I was scared the engine was going to quit and I would have to glide somewhere," Zdarsky recalled. But he made it to Austria, where he got political asylum.
Once free, Zdarsky made it to the United States and started IvoProp in California in 1986. Then five years ago, he made his way to Utah after finding land for sale in Lucin on the Internet.
Utah was always an appealing place to him. "Yeah, I remember seeing Monument Valley in Czechoslovakia on some TV," he said.
Now, Lucin is home — an extraordinary destination after an even more amazing journey.
These days, all Zdarsky worries about are badgers digging airplane damaging holes on his three runways. But, like anything else in his life, Zdarsky has a solution.
"Yeah, I have a special procedure for them," he said.
It seems Zdarsky has it all figured out, even in the middle of nowhere.
