The House That Made Squirrels Jealous

Popular Science, September 1926

This must have been the most unusual house in the neighborhood (or the forest) in Seattle, Washington, back in 1926. It wasn't the only tree-trunk house around, though. The picture below and on the right shows a house in the eastern Washington (the D.C. one), from about 1925, near the Smithsonian Castle.* I suppose this was a 1920s fad of sorts, though not everyone, of course, could indulge in it.

Now it isn't just the redwood trunk or the conical roof that interests me - take a look at those Seattle windows

Library of Congress

at the front. I'm not sure how you'd get any replacement windows if, say, a squirrel tried to throw some nuts at it because you'd co-opted some of his prime real estate. The owner had placed a "Bad Dog" sign outside the house to deter "curious persons" from bothering him. But what about the curious squirrels? Because they must have been really confused. And jealous, too.

Now, if you happen to be in the Seattle or Lake Washington area and need new windows - there is no need for jealousy or Bad Dog signs or even a handy hollowed-out giant tree trunk. You can just read more right over here. Even if you don't happen to live in a redwood.

End note: There's a redwood log house, made in 1938, at Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum in Florida, see here - but  it is lying parallel to the ground - and it doesn't have cool windows, unfortunately. Oh, and there's another in California, but carved out of the whole tree, not a section. And also: no cool windows. They did it up right in Seattle, I think.

*And an asterisk, too! The admin offices and info center of the Smithsonian Institution are in the red sandstone Smithsonian Castle, built in 1855, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Too bad the admin offices and info center are not in the redwood trunk.