Self-contained pit houses with a larder at the front (5-5)

'self-contained pit houses with a larder at the front' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'contained pit houses with a larder at the front' is the wordplay.
'contained pit' becomes 'stone' (synonyms. I am not sure about the 'contained' bit.).
'houses' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'with' becomes 'and'.
'at the front' says to take the initial letters.
The first letter of 'larder' is 'l'.
'and'+'a'+'l'='andal'
'stone' enclosing 'andal' is 'STAND-ALONE'.

Can you help me to learn more?