LSU Student Calls Treehouse Home
LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: One thing we know, everyone needs a place to call their own.</s>NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: But a Louisiana college student is taking that need to new heights. Bill Rodman from our CNN affiliate WAFB has the story of this unique loft from Walker, Louisiana.</s>BILL RODMAN, WAFB-TV REPORTER (voice-over): No, it is not out of the ordinary for a 19-year-old college student to be washing his hands, or even working on a computer. But where Erin Kennedy of Walker carries out these daily domestic duties is another story.</s>ERIN KENNEDY, BUILT TREEHOUSE WITH FATHER: You know, my dad and I, we both kind of collaborated on it and drew up plans.</s>RODMAN: What Erin and his carpenter father, Jim Kennedy, collaborated on was the construction of a three-story, 300-square-foot tree house.</s>JIM KENNEDY, CARPENTER: The biggest tree in the yard; it's kind of in the back, in the corner of the yard, kind of out of the way.</s>RODMAN: A perfect out-of-the-way place for Erin to call home, while studying architecture at</s>LSU. (on camera): Talk about a full-service treehouse; this one is complete with a kitchen, hot-water heater, digital satellite dish, and Mexican tile on the porch. (voice-over): And there's more...</s>E. KENNEDY: Shower, toaster, microwave...</s>RODMAN: ... a wood-burning stove and even air-conditioning. You can imagine what his friends think.</s>E. KENNEDY: They are amazed. Most people are just, like, speechless when they come up here.</s>J. KENNEDY: People all the time stop off the street, and they want to take a tour of it, you know.</s>RODMAN: There are roughly 60 steps up to the first floor, a deck that stands 20-feet above the ground; the second main floor is 30-feet up; and the top floor bedroom, with the Mexican tile porch, is 40-feet high: enough of a climb to give this college freshman all the privacy he needs.</s>J. KENNEDY: At 10:00 at night, it's a real long way up.</s>RODMAN: It's a spectacle you'd never expect to see way up in a Louisiana tree. In Walker, Bill Rodman, WFB-9 News.</s>ALLEN: OK, you dads out there, be careful, as you head out to your backyard to try to copy that. Search CNN.com CNNSI.com CNNmoney.com The Web