Crossville, Tennessee. One of the bigger trees, next to a dirt road, caught his eye. He decided to build the world’s largest tree house in its branches. But Horace had a job and a family. After spending a couple of years on the project, he ran out of lumber and enthusiasm. “Then I turned my life over to God,” Horace recalled. “And the spirit of God said, ‘If you build Me a tree house, I’ll never let you run out of material.'”
God doesn’t make housing offers every day. Horace got himself ordained as a minister and went back to work. God showed Horace what the tree house would look like (“It was like a vision”) but didn’t tell Horace how big it would be. “If He had,” Horace said, “I would’ve tried to talk Him out of it.”
Eleven years of labor later, Horace had what he’d originally wanted: the largest tree house in the world. It spreads across not one, but seven big trees that grow through its floors and out of its windows. It soars 100 feet into the sky. Built without blueprints, its dimensions are a mystery even to Horace, who guesses that it covers around 10,000 square feet.
News of Horace’s project spread quickly among local churches. Even before he was finished, people began showing up to climb it. They were trespassing then, and they’re trespassing now, but Horace has never had the heart to turn them away. Thousands of uninvited people have visited the tree house over the years, with God as their only lifeguard; Horace is rarely around (he still works full-time as a landscaper).
“I built it for God, and God watches over it,” Horace said. “He’s protected everyone for all these years.”
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