This ‘cozy’ airbnb treehouse is up for sale in Rhode Island — there’s just one catch
At $220 a night, you could call a Rhode Island treehouse home for the weekend — but for $17,500, you could pluck it from its clearing in the woods and call it your own.
Literally.
After building and listing the getaway on Airbnb years ago, Jeffrey Morse is now selling his 12-by-12-foot treehouse, with a 16-by-25-foot wraparound deck and 20 foot-long bridge leading up to it. But if you want it, you’ll have to move it yourself.
“If the right person buys this, it can be cut into five pieces and reassembled. And given the price of lumber right now, it’s a bargain,” he said in a listing on Facebook’s Marketplace. “If you’ve got the right place for it, this treehouse will pay for itself in four months.”
Morse explained that when he and wife Jami Ouellette first built the treehouse, they didn’t realize part of it was situated on open space. Now, he said the town of Richmond isn’t willing to let them buy that land, even with neighbor’s support, or rent out any building other than their house as an Airbnb.
“We’d move it to another part of our property but the town won’t let us rent it anymore because apparently you cannot rent an unattached building in Richmond,” Morse said.
Town officials gave the family until April 16 to make their decision and take it down.
“We’re not interested in punishing him. We’re interested in making sure the structure is safe,” Town Solicitor Karen Ellsworth, the town’s lawyer, told The Providence Journal on Monday. “We’re just interested in [whether] it’s safe for people to sleep in.”
When the coronavirus pandemic emerged, Morse told the paper that though his and Ouellette’s work slowed, guests were still eager to book a stay at the treehouse, making it a lifesaving income source.
“People in Rhode Island, with COVID there were times they wanted to get away,” Ouellette said. “We had some people who live 15 minutes away from us.”
Over the summer, local New England news outlets recommended the spot and detailed how it was quickly gaining popularity as a “magical place” among the many visitors from New York and Massachusetts who stayed a night there.
And the reviews pouring in suggested the same:
“Want an escape from reality? This is the place,” Airbnb user Jerilyn said in a Sept. 2020 review posted on the travel company’s site. “Quiet…serene…feel like you’re miles away from the world when it’s right around the corner.”
One guest called the spot “a beautiful slice of heaven,” while another compared it to “a private oasis in the forest.”
People noted in their reviews just how cozy and welcoming the treehouse is, fit with 12 screened windows, baseboard heating, an antique door, electricity, and a loft designed to look like a nest where a younger guest could sleep. According to Morse, the staircase balusters are made from a ninebark bush, the interior is crafted from rough cut pine, and the deck exterior is cedar.
“The treehouse itself is a magical place. All four walls have large screened-in windows giving you a 360 view of nature (while keeping the bugs out),” Debbie wrote of her experience in another Sept. review. “At night, you can pull down the shades for darkness but still hear the sounds of nature singing you a lullaby. The cabin in the trees is well constructed and genuinely cute.”
But to Morse, as he puts it in the for-sale listing, this cabin in the trees is a “work of love.”
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