Near Crossville, Tennessee stands the world's largest treehouse. Horace Burgess, a local landscape architect, began building the structure in 1994 around an 80 foot high oak tree that was 12 feet around at the base, as well as a few other nearby trees. The treehouse itself is 97 feet high and has 11 stories!
World's largest treehouse, Dec. 26, 2011, near Crossville, TN.
© Roger Smith, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Mr. Burgess says that was inspired by God to build the treehouse, with the Lord telling him that if he kept building it, he would never run out of material. Here's a
blog on the treehouse from November 2009 with a lot of detail photographs. And
here is an article in USA Today from July 29, 2007 about Horace Burgess and his treehouse. From the USA today article:
"I built it for everybody. It's God's treehouse. He keeps watch over it," said Burgess, who received his inspiration in a vision that came to him in 1993. "I was praying one day, and the Lord said, 'If you build me a treehouse, I'll see you never run out of material."'
...
The treehouse church with all of its elements came to Burgess in a vision from God when he was "wide awake" and lasted for only four seconds. But the instructions were clear.
"It had the basketball court in the sanctuary. I saw it like a slide show, and it showed me the podium, which rises like four crosses, two for the thieves, one for Christ, and the other cross is the one we all must bear individually," he said.
At the top of tree house is a bell tower, with the bells made of cut down old metal acetylene bottles. Up to 500 people a day (or a week, depending on which blog you chose to believe) come to the treehouse in the summer time. Here's a video showing Mr. Burgess explaining how he began building the treehouse:
The treehouse is more than just one man's , uh obsession (?) ... such an ugly term! Here's a video showing students from nearby Tennessee Tech visiting the treehouse:
And here is a video taken by a visitor from China.
In watching this last video, it just dawned on me that some do-gooder somewhere will likely find this place to be a firetrap and start all kinds of regulatory trouble. If it's really 500 people a day who are visiting a structure that's 97 feet high and built entirely of wood with unusual angles and exits, well, there's perhaps something to be said on that issue. (The treehouse-building boy in me hopes that will never happen, but he's not in charge any more!)
We need things like divinely inspired treehouses. Previously I hadn't thought the Lord to have worked via this metier. We need more grownups building treehouses for whatever reasons. But has this one gone too far?
I'm not the only one to be conflicted about this, see here, here, and here for some similar comments. Apparently portions of the Crossville treehouse are wired for electricity! So, while I stand in awe of the size of the structure, in truth, it seems quite a hazard to allow the public onto what is essentially a potential giant bonfire.
That's all for now. What do you think?
Pax.