Patricia Fisher, left, and John Tinker, holding their 3-year-old son, John, stand in front of their home, the former Laurence J. Daly School in Fayette, Mo. The school was built in 1928, and Tinker bought it in 1995.

Columbia, Mo. ? John Tinker has a well-stocked library in his home.

Tinker’s library is full of the kind of books a gentleman should have, from treatises on international affairs and military history to the paperback adventures of James Bond and Perry Mason and maybe a couple of things he shouldn’t. Sitting on a shelf looking perfectly at ease among the volumes of military history are two shiny tins of Kroger brand survival crackers circa 1962.

Tinker’s library isn’t necessarily the most fascinating aspect of his home. Not nearly.

Tinker has a second-floor gymnasium in his home complete with wood floor, stadium seating and full-size basketball court.

Tinker isn’t wealthy, but his home is rich and fascinating in a way most homes aren’t.

Tinker lives in Fayette with his wife and young son in a four-story decommissioned school building built in 1928.

“I never wanted to be part of the empire,” Tinker said, when asked of his home and atypical life. This is practical when he considers his living space; he says home is what you make it.

John Tinker does not come off as an eccentric. He is shy and introspective and prides himself on being a family man. He is also very likable and has a keen intellect.

It’s ironic that he should end up living in a school building, considering that in 1965 Tinker was kicked out of his Des Moines, Iowa, high school for wearing a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War. His case, Tinker v. Des Moines, would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court as one of the seminal freedom of expression cases of its time; Tinker’s anti-war statement would later be upheld by the court.

Tinker, 57, has a history of living in unusual circumstances. Among others, he’s lived in a 1941 Ford delivery truck, a vault in an inventor’s supply store, and a 120-by-80-foot stone barn. In 1995 he purchased the Daly elementary school building in Fayette with the thought of making it his home. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Tinker lived in various parts of the country. This will be the first winter he’s lived in the school with his wife, Patricia Fisher, and their 3-year-old son, John Fisher Tinker.

Living in the large school house has given Tinker, a Web site developer who works from home, the space to indulge his pastimes.

“I have a lot of interests,” Tinker said. “I wanted an art room, a music room, a big library, a workshop and living space.”

In the school house he has all of those things.

Tinker’s art room came pre-splattered with paint on the floor because it used to be an art classroom, and it holds, among other things, an 800-pound printing press. His music room has a multitude of instruments, including a trumpet and Mexican guitar, and resembles the musical classroom it served as years ago. His aforementioned library sits next to the gym and is probably one of the few home libraries around that reposits 40-year-old survival crackers (“They taste like the varnish inside the can,” Tinker says). His workshop, filled with wires, old computers and antique radios, looks like something H.G. Wells would be proud of.

Utility costs in so large a space can be expensive, and Tinker has been creative with his energy-saving solutions. The home’s living spaces are heated with wood stoves, there is greenhouse plastic on outside walls to trap heat and the stairway leading up to the gym has been painted with silver paint to reflect light and warm the area.

“I’m always thinking about the heat, like a building operator,” Tinker said.

Living in such unique circumstances will undoubtedly have an impact on Tinker’s young son.

“His sense will be different than a child growing up in a typical, standard house,” Patricia Fisher said. “He’ll have a large personality.”

Neither Tinker nor Fisher is self-conscious about living in a former institution as opposed to a “standard house,” yet both are keen on some practical differences.

“The dusting and sweeping are constant,” said Fisher. Tinker noted, “There’s a small but steady stream of people who want to do metal detecting in the lawn.”