Couple builds Tiny House on Stilts to Experience the Oregon Forest
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Allen Conley and Dabney Tompkins are a couple that decided to build a lookout tower in 2009. They had come to Oregon from Texas and backpacked around, and then they found this book that told them how to rent a fire lookout tower. They called a ranger district down the hill and said they'd like to rent the one on the cover of the book they found. They laughed at them and said, "Oh that's been booked up since the first day of the year." They said, "We have another one here that just got a cancellation, you guys could stay there if you want." They were absolutely charmed by it and finally they said, "Why don't we just see if we could find a piece of land and build our own fire lookout?" that way they could go there any time they wanted to.
They hired an engineer and found a builder. Jon Shepard was contracted, and he had never built anything like this, so it took him about 90 days to build the shell of it. That winter they actually camped out in there. They were glad they did that because they decided a lot of different ways that they wanted the interior laid out that was different than what they originally envisioned, but they spent some time up there they knew what it was like and then they started the interior finish out the next spring after snow was over, and that took them about 90 days to do the interior. The final product was an incredible accommodation that they call Summit Prairie Lookout.
The lookout is 40 feet tall off the ground. The first lookout they stayed at was 40 feet off the ground, so they just thought every lookout should be 40 feet off the ground. There are 66 steps from the bottom to the top, and they have a name for every single one of them. Not far from the tower is the outhouse, which they refer to as 'Going to Visit the Bear' and it's because Pooh Bear lives there. At the base of the lookout is also the hot tub and garden. And then beyond that in the woods is what they refer to as the Summer House, they built it from watching YouTube videos.
They have a 500 gallon propane tank which runs the appliances up in the tower. Now that they’re there full time, particularly in the winter, they have to have it filled up about every 9 or 10 months. The lookout is 18x18 feet, which is a fair bit larger than a traditional fire lookout. They're usually 12x12 or 14x14 feet, but they stayed in lookouts for a long time and they decided what things they wanted to change about the one that they had built and larger was the first thing.
There are four options for a bathroom. Lookouts don't have bathrooms in them because it would block the view. First option is an outhouse in the woods and the second option is the pee funnel. They always tell their female guests they know that it's very boy centric, so they always give their female guests a Go Girl, which is a little female urinary device that they can use if they so desire.
They also extended the front deck to 8 feet. In a traditional fire lookout it's just a small catwalk that goes all the way around it, but they wanted to be able to sit out and enjoy the view on a nice day. It adds a lot of living room space and nice days you can just open the doors and then the whole thing feels like it's part of the living area. On the other side they have another potty option if anybody's in the middle of the night and they really don't want to go down four flights of stairs, they can use the little portable toilet that's right there.
One of their favourite things is the shower. On a really cold day they can come out and turn the hot water on and stand out there, enjoy the view and take a shower in front of God and everybody, but there's nobody else there so it's great. They have a trapdoor there that you can put down at night and when you're gone.
The windows are not recycled. They're brand new double hung and double insulated. They wanted the view but they didn't want the cold, so for them it was worth the expense. They have a removable door stop which goes down into the floor to keep the door from hitting the wall and breaking. They got drawers underneath the bed so people can store their gear. There's always a place to put their stuff and they have shelves put up around the whole perimeter because they had enough stuff that they wanted up and out of the way, but they didn't really want walls of shelves. They don't have window screens mostly because they like the unobstructed view, but there are times during the summer window when the wasps and bees get a little out of hand and so they've got these easily removable screens which people can install in the windows.
The propane fireplace doesn’t only give great ambiance to the space, but it heats the lookout really well in winter, so much so that they often have to open windows. Every standard lookout tower has an insulator stool. This one was made by a friend of theirs. These glass insulators were used on telephone poles and it provides non grounded experience for people who were attached to a landline to report a fire. Even though their water comes from a spring down below they’re still conscious about water use as it's brought up all forty feet by a solar-powered pump. They also have a propane stove with electric ignition, Same thing for the refrigerator.
They even have access to a computer, but it’s an energy hog so they don't use it much. The propane lamps are standard issue and they had those as their first source of lighting there until they figured out that they actually really couldn't read by the light they gave off. It was still too dark at night, so they were using headlamps to read basic things and they thought, "We can do better than this" so the LED lamps, which are the can lights, help tremendously. There’s a second floor in the lookout that can be accessed by a ladder that drops from the ceiling. They have this trapdoor which they made of grate so the air from the downstairs will come up through the floor. There’s on either side, and the whole bed lifts up to access storage underneath, including the pressure tank for the water.
Everything in life is a trade-off. In order to have something you have to give up something else. You have to accept that that's the way it's gonna work. You can't have everything without giving up some things. If they had any advice to give, it would be to start now. To weed out the stuff that you don't use now. Everything is temporary. They try to make it true by savoring the moment as it happens. They savor their relationship as it is and it's a palette evolving because it's not gonna last. You really only get one chance at life. That's all there is. You should fill that life with as many different kinds of experiences as you possibly can.
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