Growing up, I always wanted a treehouse. Something to hide away in, behind the branches and overlooking the grounds around me.

I’d think of the wooden beams that would secure it, the steps to climb up to my secret spot, away from everyone in the world.

For one man, making treehouses for his family became his favorite thing to do. After five years of making them, though, he decided to take the traditional treehouse and make it into a dream come true.

Steve Taylor’s idea – use shipping containers to create a 50-foot-tall treehouse.

“When I say I have a treehouse business, this doesn’t come to mind. People think it’s on a small scale,” Taylor told Insider.

But when I say it’s a two-bedroom, one-bath, with a 400-square-foot living room, a hot tub, and a full kitchen, it kind of catches people off guard.”

Photos by Steve Taylor

Taylor is an engineer who lives in Ladonia, Texas. “We have a personal treehouse that we built — it’s a traditional treehouse supported by four trees,” Taylor said. “We actually haven’t finished it yet because this (new) property became available. So I kind of got distracted from my own treehouse to start this treehouse business.” 

His newest design is made using four shipping containers. He supported one side of the house by steel beams that he placed in a tree.

Taylor worked with his father on the design and build of the treehouse. “My father’s an engineer too, so he gave me some suggestions. I got his input and together we came up with this design,” he said.

When the project began in December 2019, everything had to be done from scratch, including building roads to the property. 

Majority of the work was done on the ground, to make it easier to work on the treehouse. But that created its own set of issues, Taylor said.

“You have to cut the floor, the ceiling, and the sides in an orientation that they’re not going to be in the future,” he said. “The containers are lying down now, but when we pick them up, how do you make sure you get the door in the right place?”

Then came for the challenging part – raising the containers. “We tried to do that pretty quickly to limit the time that one of them was up there by itself,” he said.

Now finished, Taylor said the house has a stairwell in the red vertical container, and the toilet and two bedrooms are in the white vertical container. There are 85 stairs, including the 20-foot-tall circular staircase outside of the treehouse.

The living room, kitchen, dining area, and hot tub balcony are all in horizontal containers.

“This treehouse is welded to the ground, to 150,000 pounds of concrete plus the tree,” Taylor said. “I would feel more safe in the treehouse than in our house in a high-wind situation.”

The Air Castle, as he crowned it, can be rented on Airbnb for $330 per night.

Taylor said he spent ‘multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars’ to build the unique space, but didn’t expect to use it as a home.

“It’s probably not cost-effective as a personal residence, but as a short-term rental, it’ll pay for itself pretty quickly,” he said.

Even more though, Taylor said, is the creation of a family legacy.

“My dad’s been involved, my daughter is involved — she did the mural on the side of the container. Ladonia is our town name and we put that there along with our logo, local landmarks, and family memories,” he said. “It’s our intent to keep it as a family business because we’ve been so involved in building it.”

For a look at the amazing treehouse, watch below.

Sources: My Positive Outlooks | Insider | Daily Mail