Southeast Mo. man builds treehouse-style Airbnb

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) - You might have childhood memories in tree houses, but did you know there’s an actual tree house for people to stay in near Cape Girardeau?

“Welcome to the Twisted Sassafras treehouse,” Craig Heisserer said as we walked up the treehouse stairs.

“We felt like it was the trees really that made this place so special,” Heisserer said.

His treehouse-inspired structure sits at around 500 square feet. It has a studio-style layout, and, of course, a bathroom.

Heisserer showed me a bed and said, “This is how the treehouse actually got its name, with these twisted sassafras posts. I made this post about four years ago and didn’t really have a place to put it so we decided to build this treehouse.”

Building a living space in the treetops is a first for Heisserer.

“Would you call this a labor of love,” we asked him.

”Yeah, absolutely,” he responded.

Through the help of the internet and several professionals, he said he learned to do things the right way. But there’s one thing he said you can’t learn.

“It took passion, you know, it’s not something where you have this idea, and three weeks later you don’t think about it again,” he said. “It’s got to consume you a little bit and you know it kind of gets in your bones.”

Which is exactly what would end up happening to him.

“I think it was about four weeks out after I had broke my heel and had to have surgery on it they put it back together with screws and from that started the healing process.”

That process would delay construction for nearly four months, but he said the same place that hurt him, would also be a way to help him.

“I think it was very therapeutic to come here and work,” he added.

Since the building has been finished, he said the calls keep coming in.

“We’re getting bookings from Indiana, Iowa, middle of Illinois, so we’re getting a lot of people that are travelling out of state to come and stay in the treehouse.”

A link to their airbnb website is here.

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