TERLINGUA, Texas - It isn’t easy to find the Field Lab, a homestead deep in the West Texas desert and 50 kilometers or so from the Mexican border . But John Wells, who built the place and lives there all by himself, will cheerfully lead you in.

Known locally as the Moonscape, this landscape of mesas and buttes, mesquite and desert juniper is rough and cheap, which makes it tempting for people like Mr. Wells who live off the grid. There are no paved roads, no electricity and no water, but you can easily see the Milky Way. With his long ZZ Top beard, battered cowboy hat and worn boots, Mr. Wells, 51, looks like a native. But like many here, he’s a recent transplant, a former fashion and catalog photographer from New York.

Following a long tradition of backto- the-landers, Mr. Wells came here to hash life out on his own terms , taming this rough environment to his own frugal needs. Wind power or solar? How much water can you snatch in a half-hour of rain? Can you dam a gully? How do you build a swamp cooler - How long does it take to cook chicken cutlets in a solar oven? And “if it didn’t work out,” he said, “the investment was so cheap, I’d be able to walk away.”

In October 2007, Mr. Wells bought this land - a 16-hectare parcel - for $8,000 in cash, later adding an 8-hectare tract for $5,000. It took nine days and $1,600 to build the shell of his one-room house, the first structure in a compound that now includes four shipping containers under a soaring arched roof on a lacy framework of metal trusses, all of which he made himself. He calls it the Southwest Texas Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living Field Laboratory ? the Field Lab for short.

By the following summer, he had started a blog detailing his daily struggles and small triumphs. Sometimes, he wrote early on, “it’s hard to tell if I’m walking on some distant planet, or just lost in the desert.”

By the anniversary of his second year , he had recorded 200,000 visitors to his blog and attracted about 800 regular readers.

Mr. Wells chainsmoked through a recent tour .

Four shipping containers (bought for $1,000 each), painted in white primer, surround a courtyard. A crane lifted them onto concrete blocks, but it was Mr. Wells alone who shimmied each one just so with a car jack.

This year, he’ll build raised beds for growing vegetables. One shipping container is fitted out for guests, but Mr. Wells plans to move in soon, building a separate guesthouse. The tiny shack he currently sleeps in has a desk, storage cubicles, a single bunk bed and a kitchen counter; above it is a lamp made from a tomato-juice can.

When you work alone, you have to be patient, and safety is a colossal issue.

“When the containers were first delivered, I remember thinking, ‘What if the door slams and I’m trapped inside?’ ” Mr. Wells said. “What I realized,” he said, “is that the webcam” - which is trained daily on the Field Lab - “is a safety backup. Somebody’s always watching me.”

Back in 2001, Mr. Wells bought a Greek Revival farmhouse in Spencertown, New York, a little hamlet 180 kilometers from Manhattan, and moved out of the city. It cost him $255,000, and after six or seven years, his property taxes had doubled, from $6,000 to $12,000. He was carrying $67,000 in debt. “I couldn’t even enjoy this big house,” he said.

When he read an article about a couple who were powering their little adobe house in the West Texas desert with some wind turbines, he went for a visit. He said he remembered thinking, “Who the heck could ever live here?”

That was in February. In March, he sold his house for $600,000 and paid off his debt. Then he canceled his credit card. After winnowing his possessions down to fit into a rental truck, he headed west. He has spent about $35,000 on his compound: water tanks are about $1,000 each (he has nine); solar panels and batteries, about $2,500; and the container compound cost about $20,000.

His ongoing costs are minimal: annual property tax bill, $86; just over $80 a month for Internet and phone service (it cost $10 to bury the cables and run them out to his property); health insurance, $280 a month; truck insurance, $750 a year. And every year he pays $50 for a helicopter service for medical evacuation.

Mr. Wells is more than content to be living alone. “The thought of compromising my day doesn’t appeal to me,” he said.

He’s happy enough to unite others, however, having been ordained as a minister online. Two years ago, he married two friends here; Mr. Wells wore a new cowboy hat.