Erin Wasson

“I moved into this house in Venice Beach six years ago. I’m in New York more, but I try to come back to L.A. pretty often. The house is only about 900 square feet, but the best part is the big backyard. I always had a fantasy, growing up in Texas, of having my own skate ramp, but we never had enough space at my family’s house. Now the backyard’s awesome. We put in the half-pipethe summer I moved in. There was a small skate shop down the road, and a lot of the boys who worked there would come over and sit around and work on it slowly. One day it was done. Now tons of people from the neighborhood come by. We fire up the grill and everybody hangs out and skates. Then there’s my tree house. It’s got sliding glass windows, it’s fully insulated, and there’s electricity. We wanted to make sure that the house didn’t harm the trees in any way, so it’s naturally suspended. There are no nails in the tree at all. I didn’t think in a million years the tree house was going to turn out as nicely as it has. It’s super-comfortable, really cozy. I go up there in the afternoons to do work. At night, when I’m standing in my backyard and have the bonfire going, I think, ‘Wow. This is really my own little sanctuary.’”

Inspired by Erin Wasson’s place? WikiHow provides a “how-to” manual for building a half-pipe and tree house.