Washington Man Builds Incredible Treehouse With Its Own Skatebowl
— -- Foster Huntington has spent the past year of his life building a treehouse you do not see in most backyards.
Huntington’s version of a child’s getaway includes two treehouses connected by a bridge that overlook a hot tub and skatebowl in Skamania, Washington.
“I’d saved money and I’d always wanted to build a treehouse and decided just to do it,” Huntington, 27, told ABC News. “I called up one of my best friends from college who is a carpenter and designer and we started scheming and planning.
“We started bolting things to trees in June 2014,” said Huntington, who chose family property near his childhood home for the treehouses' location.
Huntington’s journey began back in 2011 when he quit his fashion job in New York City to live a mobile life in his van, pursuing one of his passions, photography.
“I took all my personal savings,” Huntington said, declining to specify the exact cost of the treehouses. “We’d always go to my family’s property and camp and it has great trees and was kind of just begging for a treehouse.”
Huntington relied on a group of about 20 friends to help him build the two treehouses, one suspended 20-feet off the ground and the other around 35-feet off the ground.
The treehouses, both less than 200 square feet, are connected by two bridges and overlook the skatebowl that Huntington included because skate boarding is another one of his passions.
The two treehouses are constructed of all wood, mostly reclaimed Douglas fir and western red cedar.
“The interior is rustic,” Huntington said, adding that it has Wi-Fi but no wire electricity yet. “Nothing fancy but [has] nice custom woodworking, like built-ins.”
Huntington plans to use the treehouses as his home base as he continues to make videos and photo books. A Kickstarter campaign for a book on how he built the treehouses has raised over $14,000 so far.
“We were doing the roof wrong in one part and we lost about two to three weeks,” Huntington said of the biggest obstacle the construction team faced. “It all goes according to plan until you have to start working on it, and from there it just comes down to maintaining momentum and being flexible.”
“We had to figure out solutions the entire time,” he said. “It was a constant problem-solving experience, which is what’s fun about building.”
