If you’ve got $1.5 million, you could own a piece of Crossville history: the famous Horace Burgess Treehouse now on the block.
A Chattanooga Realty Company listed the 97-foot tall treehouse and the 139 acres with it Tuesday for $1.5 million.
Crossville resident Horace Burgess built the treehouse in the early 1990s. In an interview with RoadsideAmerica.Com, Burgess said he struggled to finish the project, but heard from God.
“And the spirit of God said, ‘If you build Me a treehouse, I’ll never let you run out of material,” Burgess said.
People began arriving at the site just off Interstate 40 in Crossville to see the estimated 10-thousand square foot treehouse. They showed up uninvited to see the treehouse.
Burgess stopped building the treehouse in 2004. Vandals destroyed many parts of the facility. The Tennessee Fire Marshall closed the facility in 2012, concerned about the number of tourists and the safety of the facility. Since then, visitors to the site found a sign on the gate with the fire marshall’s number and instructions to call him with complaints. Visitors can be charged with trespassing.
The official listing for the property notes a five-acre, fully-stocked lake, 25 acres of fenced fields for animals and a four-stall barn, and riding trails.