Unofficially named ‘The World’s Tallest Treehouse’, this 10-story structure was made entirely from reclaimed wood by a single man over two decades. My husband J and I visited it earlier this year – it’s located down a windy dirt road just off I-40 in the small town of Crossville, Tennessee.

The Reverend Horace Burgess first began nailing reclaimed boards together around an 80-foot tall oak tree on his rural property in the 1980s. “I built it for everybody. It’s God’s treehouse. He keeps watch over it,” Burgess told USA Today. “I was praying one day, and the Lord said, ‘If you build me a treehouse, I’ll see that you never run out of material.’”

Burgess has had no problems in that department, expanding the treehouse to include six additional trees in its base, and building up until the structure reached nearly 100 feet in height. He says that he has spent about $12,000 on it, mostly in hardware – including 258,000 nails.

By pure luck, J and I arrived early one winter morning and the place was entirely abandoned – or so it seemed – giving it a rather unsettling feel. An unseen dog barked deliriously from the moment we stepped out of our car until the moment we left. A strange little camp off to one side of the treehouse was still and silent, but we could feel eyes on us as we climbed. Mounting each rickety step of the several spiral staircases that were inside, we could hear the occasional shuffle and cough. The treehouse is apparently a refuge for homeless people, as we learned later; though we never saw anyone, there were several dirty mattresses, sleeping bags, opened cans of food and other signs of occupation.

This is the point where many people would begin to feel like the obvious intended victims in a horror film, but we couldn’t help continuing on – there was a huge cathedral in the center, complete with stained glass; palm prints in brightly colored paint; graffiti with a slightly deranged religious flavor. A lawn chair, dangling on ropes tied dozens of feet above it, apparently served as a junkyard-style swing.

We reached the apex, where splintery wood gave the dizzying height an even more potent sense of danger (we just got to the tower – that crazy, rickety platform up top was unreachable, not that we would have tried!). And just then, as we spotted heart-quickening movement among the chaos of wooden beams three or so floors beneath us, a veritable convoy of tourists came pouring down the dirt road, bringing with them the comforting sounds of slamming car doors and squealing children. The treehouse gets an average of 400 visitors per week – our lone adventure is apparently quite unusual during daylight hours, but it was a neat way to experience it.

All photos by Stephanie Alice Rogers – reuse permitted if credited and linked. Thanks.