, Asylum Exclusive
How to Live in a Tree House, From a Guy Who Did It for Five Years
Calling all tree-huggers: We have found your god. Now that Julia Butterfly Hill has given up arbor squatting, nature-lovers will be excited to hear of Corbin Dunn, a totally awesome dude who resided in a tree house for five years and then got a wife and a job working on the iPhone.How did this design mastermind carry out such a herculean feat as the building of a tree house, which we thought went out of fashion when the 1950s ended? And why would a female person want anything to do with it?
Keep reading for the answers to these and other questions we've wanted answered since we were 6.
First, don't try to build it alone.
"When I was 14 years old, my friend, Chris Howland, helped me build some basic walls and a roof on it," Dunn tells Asylum. "It was more of something to do and play around in. In high school, we would hang out in it with friends. I went away to aviation college in Arizona for '96–'98, and during the summers I would stay in the tree house at home."
Once the initial work is done, it's time to get serious or head back to solid ground.
"I wanted my own place to stay, and the old tree house didn't fare well in the winter," says Dunn, so he opted to build a new, year-round tree condo. When he completed the project in 1999, his parents were moving to Hawaii and leaving their property, where the tree house sits, behind. Dunn chose to go back to college and live in his new creation instead of "their old, empty house."
Wire the place for modern technology and check Asylum.com twice a day.
The house was wired for electricity and water, and did have a shower and toilet. "I only showered in it for about a year-and-a-half," Dunn recalls, "As the small water heater limited my showers to about four minutes at most, and the shower didn't drain well." He was only able to obtain dial-up, though, so he sought out a job where he could enjoy the modern essentials of an office.
Make sure to go out and stretch your legs once a year.Louise, Dunn's then-girlfriend, loved mountain unicycling, which is as wild as it sounds. She got him so hooked on this unusual sport that he bested everyone in sight and is currently the Unicycle Marathon World Champion, having conquered a 27-mile race in January at the world championships in New Zealand.
When it's time to give it up, shave your mountain man beard, head back to the mainstream, get a move on.
Louise stuck it out in the tree house as long as she could, but the slightly musty smell and tiny bed eventually wore on her. The lovers signed a lease on a traditional ground house in nearby Los Gatos, which was close to both of their places of employment. Then, five years ago, he got married and landed a new gig at Apple, ultimately helping to tweak the first version of the iPhone. In other words, not everyone who does this will end up going crazy and chopping up a hotel with an ax.
Get out while you can. Tree houses eventually fall down, you know.
As Dunn explains on his Web site, "A few weeks ago we got a lot of rain and wind. That was probably the pushing factor that made it fall out." He adds that the main reason it failed is that, well, he's no designer. He believes the project was flawed from the beginning and could only expect to last 10 years. "I started building it when I was 20, and moved in when I was 21. In a few short months, I'll be 31."
(The design was fatally flawed in four ways. If you're seriously interested in building one of these, check out Dunn's breakdown of what happened.)
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