Brian Vastag

It’s pouring, and I’m 30 feet up a strangler fig tree warm and dry. There’s a bathroom with hot water five steps down, and outlets supply juice for my computer and camera. I’m in Tommy’s treehouse – the best free lodging around, and with most of the comforts of home thanks to the solar panels up top.

Tommy Thomas is an expat who fled to Costa Rica during the Reagan days. He planned to stay a year or two, and he’s still here, running a 20 acre herb farm. He calls it The Ark because he wants at least 2 of everything. And he’s well on his way – his collection of medicinal, ornamental, and gastronomical plants runs to almost 1000 species, although he stopped counting around 500.

Tommy bought the farm in 1991, and it was just “trash land,” he says, overrun with wild guava and some coffee. When he saw the strangler fig – so called because the species latches onto an existing tree for support and, ultimately, kills it – he knew it needed a treehouse. Last year he finally designed and built the al fresco aerie, and it’s a beaut.

The main room measures about 20 feet square, enough space for a queen bed, a few chairs and a small table. Three sides are enclosed, with the fourth open to a view of Costa Rica’s Central Valley. The room sits in the wide crotch of the tree, and it’s solid. “It’s not going anywhere,” says Tommy. He’s right – there have been some pretty stiff gusts this afternoon and I haven’t felt the place sway an inch.

Below the bedroom to the left is a bathroom, with a lovely tiled shower that I shared with a large spider this morning.

[Well, I found out that only the main bedroom light and the hot water are solar. The outlets in the treehouse are wired to the grid, which went dead. I had arrogantly neglected to charge my computer earlier in the day, thinking I'd have juice whenever I wanted it. I'm finishing this post from handwritten notes.]

Lighting strikes nearby, and I jump. It was a doozy, ripping open the heavens. I’m beginning to wonder what would happen if the tree got zapped. That’s three big lightning strikes that felt like they were on top of me. Wow – that was REALLY loud.

Just as I’m thinking about climbing down and getting drenched, I hear Tommy. He’s come by to check on me. As the wind blows the rain into the treetop bedroom, he asks if I think he should enclose the fourth side. Nah, I say. The point of a treehouse is to commune with nature a bit, even in a storm. Or especially in a storm. He agrees but says less outdoorsy visitors don’t.

He tells me the treehouse started as fairly simple project – a platform, roof, and stairs. “Just a place to hang out for an afternoon and maybe bring a ladyfriend,” he says. Then he got ambitious and added the roof, walls, bathroom, and solar system. I notice later that thick stone walls support the utility room below the bathroom.

As he worked on the project, Tommy found a bunch of websites devoted to the apparently growing fad of building real residences in trees. “There are some serious treehouses out there,” he says. I think this one is plenty serious, and despite the howling wind and raging thunderstorm, I decide to stay.