The $50,000 Man Cave in the Clouds

The $50,000 Man Cave in the Clouds

 

The $50,000 Man Cave in the Clouds.  Image courtesy of  photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The $50,000 Man Cave in the Clouds. Image courtesy of photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If you’re a kid and your home has trees, sooner or later you’ll want a treehouse. And if you’re a creative grownup with a tinkering inner child, you’ll outdo yourself, as Jono Williams found.

Williams wanted a tree house on his New Zealand property, but didn’t like the limitations: Trees grow and change, the house would be exposed to the elements, and he’d have to conform to the tree’s limbs. That led Williams to decide to build his own structure, and he expanded the project from there.

The Skysphere, as Williams dubbed the result, ended up becoming a smart home on top of a steel tower in a field, with glass windows providing a 360-degree view. Williams, a plastics engineer and graphic designer, designed and built the structure himself, including its furniture. The materials cost $50,000, and it took him 3,000 hours to complete the construction, Williams says.

The solar-powered man cave — as it ended up becoming — includes a motorized door with a fingerprint lock, a beer cooler and dispenser built into the couch, fully dimmable smart LED lightbulbs, high-speed Internet, a rooftop stargazing platform, a video projection system, and a custom-built sofa and queen-sized bed.

The solar panels can power everything in the structure for two days a week, perfect for Williams’ weekend getaways. One downside is that there’s “no bathroom at the moment,” Williams says in a blog post on his site, “but I plan to build a small bathroom in the trees near the tower.” So he’ll still have a little house in the trees.

Source: “An engineer spent 3 years building the ultimate high-tech man cave,” Business Insider (July 26, 2015)