- Foster Huntington built the Cinder Cone Treehouse in Skamania County on the Columbia River Gorge
- Recruited a small group of friends, including his carpenter mother, to help build from summer through winter 2014
- Made up of two 200 sq ft structures - one is a guesthouse/studio and the other is Huntington's living space
- Huntington decided he needed a home base after living in a van the last three years to surf, camp and photograph
Three years after quitting his job in New York to move into a van and surf and camp around the West Coast, one popular blogger and photographer decided he was ready for a home base.
But not just any apartment or condo would do for Foster Huntington. Instead he decided to build an incredible treehouse, complete with a bonafide skatepark and a wood-burning hot tub, in Skamania County, Washington.
Huntington began drawing the plans for the Cinder Cone Treehouse last spring of 2014, breaking ground on property that's been in his family for 20 years in the Columbia River Gorge.
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This is the incredible treehouse Foster Huntington and a group of close friends built on the Columbia River Gorge on Skamania County, Washington - complete with a bonafide skatepark and a wood-burning hot tub
Huntington began drawing the plans for the Cinder Cone Treehouse last spring of 2014, breaking ground on property that's been in his family for 20 years, picking the perfect spot between two douglas fir trees on a hill with the best view
Hungtington's team work on the skate bowl one early morning. Huntington said many of his friends, some with professional carpentry experience and others who 'learned on the go', stopped by to work and stay on the property as it was built in 2014
With the help of a small group of close friends, as well as his carpenter mother, Huntington began building in June and worked through the winter.
'Friends old and new stopped by to work and stay on the property,' he wrote on his Kickstarter. 'Some of us worked as carpenters professionally, others learned on the go.'
Huntington said a treehouse was a 'good evolution' after he spent years enjoying life in the small space of his camper, he toldMpora.
The perfect spot was between a row of Douglas fir trees, situated on a hill that Huntington said had the best view, for the project that he estimated cost around $170,000.
Huntington decided he needed a home base after spending the last three years living in his van to camp and surf through the West Coast
Pictured was the team's first night sleeping up in the trees, six weeks into the treehouse's building stage that began in June 2014
The treehouse is actually made up of two 200 sq ft structures that are connected by a 25ft bridge
'I feel like it's important to live in a place that's really inspiring to live and in this day and age of the internet you can kind of work from wherever,' he said.
The treehouse is made up of two 200 sq ft structures, connected by a 25ft bridge, Huntington told Outside Magazine.
One acts as a workshop and guesthouse while the other, an octagonal cabin with bunk beds, is Huntington's living space
And have no fear, Huntington said he still has Wi-Fi and 4G internet - even up in the trees.
'That’s all I need to make a living,' he told Mpora. 'So I could be here or I could be in Manhattan and it’s way cheaper to do what I’m doing here.'
One acts as a workshop and guesthouse, while the other, an octagonal cabin with bunk beds, is Huntington's living space
Pictured are Huntington's friends inspecting the arched bridge, dubbed the double rainbow, that would connect the two structures
'I feel like it's important to live in a place that's really inspiring to live', Huntington said. 'And in this day and age of the internet you can kind of work from wherever'
Huntington found his way to New York City after graduation, catching the eye of a big design firm thanks to a blog he created while bored in college that was called A Restless Transplant.
He soon realized he wasn't satisfied being 'inside an office building working 70 hours a week in my early twenties' for a corporation, he told Vice.
That's when he created another photo blog, dubbed The Burning House. It would be his ticket to life on the road after publisher HarperCollins gave him a book advance, which he used to buy a Volkswagen van.
'Moving into a van, I only had space for the stuff that I needed, for the s*** that I really wanted to do,' Huntington said.
Huntington said he wanted his new home to be a place where his friends would want to come and hang out and work on their own projects
Huntington's best friend, carpenter Tucker Gorman, works on the studio's platform early on in the treehouse's building stage
'Treehouses are the same. This is small, like 200 square feet. So it forces you to be a lot more specific about the stuff you have.'
Huntington documented the building of the Cinder Cone Treehouse for a Vimeo video and is now raising money on Kickstarter for a book detailing how he and his friends pulled it off.
'My goal is to make something that shows the process from dreaming up a seemingly outlandish idea to the final result after thousands of hours of hard work and the moments that happened in between,' he writes on the fundraising site.
'I hope that the result ignites the imagination of people’s inner kid, and gets ideas going for their own projects.'
Huntington is now raising money on Kickstarter for a book that that details how he and his friends pulled off his dream
'I hope that the result ignites the imagination of people’s inner kid,' he said, 'And gets ideas going for their own projects'
