Pismo Beach tree house featured on Zillow Gone Wild. What’s it like to live there?
A Pismo Beach property listed for $3.8 million went viral after one of its dwellings was featured by popular social media account Zillow Gone Wild.
The one-bedroom, one-bath apartment at 765 Price Canyon Road features a lot of light and a big patio. Oh, and it just happens to be built around a coastal live oak tree.
Photographer Christopher Petro lived in the tree house for a decade before moving to Nipomo in 2019.
“It always felt like this rustic, highly inspiring place to be,” said Petro, who dubbed the one-of-a-kind home “the treehaus.”
Listed by Amy Gallagher of Century 21 Hometown Realty in Arroyo Grande, the 6.69-acre property in the Pismo Heights area features five different dwelling units.
In addition to the tree house, there’s a large museum with a studio and one-bedroom apartment; a shed-style studio with a full bath and a carriage house with a two-bedroom apartment, a studio apartment and two-car garage, according to the listing on Zillow.com.
The main house has two bedrooms, one and a quarter baths with a rock fireplace and wrap-around decking.
“Each home has wooded settings and private yards and decks set among this oak-studded lot tucked into a beautiful, private coastal canyon,” the listing says, as well as designated parking areas.
There are two recreational vehicle sites with hookups and “many more RV sites with room to park all of your toys,” the listing says.
And those aren’t the only highlights.
The Zillow listing mentions a “Zen yoga platform ... situated next to a seasonal creek that is tucked into the wooded hillside” and a 60-foot deep man-made cave, perfect for storing wine.”
According to the listing, the “amazing coastal canyon retreat” is located “within walking distance to the Pismo Beach Pier and downtown Pismo Beach.”
The property was originally built in the mid-1960s by Tilford Dickerson “Dick” Skeen, according to Skeen’s 2002 obituary.
Skeen built the Good Old Days museum, little theater and antique shop in 1964, the obituary said. Many of those buildings have since been converted to living quarters.
This property is “an existing, non-conforming property” that was grandfathered into the city of Pismo Beach, the Zillow listing says, which means developing the land would require a zoning change.
Property catches attention of Zillow Gone Wild
Since the southern San Luis Obispo County property went on the market more than a month ago, it’s captured the attention of Zillow Gone Wild, which is dedicated to showcasing the most outlandish properties on popular online real estate marketplace Zillow.
“A young couple could really put their roots down in a place like this,” one commenter joked.
“You can rent this on Air Bugs ‘n Branches,” another said.
“Hope the buyer has cats,” another said. “This would make them very happy.”
Petro said he had been waiting for the moment when the Internet caught on to the Pismo Beach tree house.
“It’s been really funny,” he said. “I kind of always knew that there was going to be a watershed moment where the stories were really going to come out.”
What’s it like to live in a tree house?
Petro was a recent Cal Poly graduate when he went looking for a new home around 2008.
One Sunday evening, after about six months of searching, Petro saw a listing on Craigslist for a “tree house artist’s studio” in Pismo Beach.
“I immediately messaged the owner and said, ‘Hey, I like this place. Can I come and check it out?’ ” Petro recalled. “I toured it Monday. (On) Tuesday, he told me I had it. And then Wednesday, I moved in.”
Over the decade or so that he called the tree house home, Petro completed graduate school, experienced the deaths of both parents and survived cancer, he said. “There’s all these major life events that were bookended by the experience of living in that place.”
He also changed careers to become a photographer. a career move that he attributes in part to living in such an inspired setting.
“It felt like you were always amid nature,” he said, adding that he frequently heard birds, owls and even raccoons living in the tree. “There were cinematic elements to living there.”
Petro lived on the property for so long that he was able to refer his friends to the landlord when other dwellings on the compound became available for rent.
He and his friends played murder mystery games at the former Good Old Times museum and regularly hosted group dinners and game nights, he said.
“I was always happy to have people come by and I entertained a ton when I lived there,” he said.
Petro said he would often take care of pets for his friends, which presents some challenges when a tree grows inside your home. Cats would climb on the limbs, he said, while dogs tended to mark the tree.
Although Petro loved living in the Pismo Beach tree house, he said the setting came with its own set of issues, including fungus, mold and a near-constant chill, because it was difficult to insulate around growing limbs.
Unwelcome house guests were another problem. Petro had to contend with hundreds of pill bugs that came in through the tree.
He said the worst part of living in the tree house was the wind storms. In February 2014, a sugar pine tree that grew on the compound cracked and fell, narrowly missing Petro and his home.
The landlord soon removed the remaining trees nearby because of the safety hazard during storms, he said.
Still, he said, “I was happy to have lived there. It was a great chapter of my life.”
According to the Zillow listing, “All the units on the property have been remodeled” in anticipation of a sale to new owners.
“This property has been held in the same family for decades,” the listing says, “and is truly a unique and rare property that must be seen to appreciate it!”
This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Pismo Beach tree house featured on Zillow Gone Wild. What’s it like to live there?."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Tilford Dickerson “Dick” Skeen. The error has been corrected.
