You know those videos that hit different? The ones that make you stare at your screen and immediately start planning how to quit your job and disappear into the woods? That’s this secret treehouse tour.
The guy walking you through it is Skye Peterson, a master carpenter and full-time treehouse aficionado living on the Big Island of Hawaii near Kīlauea Volcano. This isn’t some weekend DIY project. Skye’s been at this for decades. He started as a pilot flying small planes out of Honolulu in the 1980s, got sick of city life, switched to construction, and then went all in on building actual, livable treehouses from scavenged materials in the rainforest.
He bought land near the volcano in the late ‘80s, built his first ones in the ‘90s, and has put up multiple over the years. The one in this video, the “Secret Treehouse,” took him around seven years and finished up around 2022. It’s supported by a bunch of living and cut ‘ōhi‘a trees, sits about 20-25 feet up, and is basically a full cabin in the canopy with a kitchen, shower, living space, and multiple decks. One of those decks he calls the “Titanic lanai,” which is pure comedy gold.
Skye doesn’t just build these things for fun (though you can tell he loves every second of it). He rents them out as vacation stays through his Volcano Treehouse BNB setup. People pay good money to sleep in his creations, surrounded by giant tree ferns and native forest, with the volcano a short drive away. He’s living the dream: building wild structures out of recycled wood and windows he hauled over from Oahu, hanging out in the rainforest, and letting other people pay him to experience it.
The tour itself is pure vibes. White-bearded Skye opens doors like it’s no big deal, shows off the stone-walled shower, the open living area with the futon and views for days, the walkways, and those massive lanais. No HOA, no neighbors complaining about the height of your grass, just birds and rainforest at eye level.
Most of us are stuck in boxes arguing with landlords. This guy said “I’m building in the trees next to an active volcano” and then actually did it. Multiple times. And now he gets to give tours of his own work while people call it a tree mansion online.
