When Nephi resident John Osburn sits in his treehouse, he is amazed at what it has become.
You read that right: Treehouse.
To Osburn, it is a winter wonderland, spring rejuvenator, summer escape and fall festival of colors. To the world, however, it is John’s Oasis, and thousands have come to Nephi, Utah to experience what is now a thriving Airbnb.
“I’ve had visitors from the Philippines, Latin America, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Peru and Mexico,” Osburn told Serve Daily. “They’ve come from all over Canada, Europe, Germany and Holland. I’ve had three families from Israel, and England. People will go online and say, ‘Let’s go to some really cool place we’ve never been before,’ and they’ll book a flight to Salt Lake City and stay 3-4 nights here.”
The treehouse has three-levels, two-bedrooms, one-bath, a hot tub, pavilion, zip line, suspended bridge, and now, a Hobbit hole for those who prefer ground dwelling.
What is now a unique destination spot for world travelers, didn’t start out that way, or even with that intent in mind. Osburn said that it was built as a “backyard” addition for his growing posterity that now includes grandchildren.
“I built the treehouse 11 years ago with my wife and kids,” Osburn said. “We put the first boards down together. We’re rock climbers, so we put on our harnesses and climbing ropes. We put big, tall ladders up and strapped ourselves to the harnesses and climbed up. I tried to be as careful as I possibly could to pierce the tree as little as possible, and used aerospace design bolts that have 20,000 pounds of strength.”
You read that right: Aerospace design bolts.
A journey from aerospace
If you want to understand how Osburn got to where he is today, you need to know that he had to start somewhere, and that place was in a galaxy far, far away. Well, maybe it started a little closer to home—helping to create THE machine that would orbit in outer space and give eons of people a literal view into worlds outside their own.
If you guessed that Osburn worked on the Hubble Space Telescope, you would be correct.
“For about 7 1/2 years, I lived in California and worked on the Hubble Space Telescope,” Osburn said. “I worked as a subcontractor and a lot of what I did went into the satellite and into the telescope. My forte was precision machining. It’s kind of neat to see what it’s produced over the last 30 years.”
When his Hubble Space Telescope years were over, Osburn held on to some hardware (for later) and kept an active eye on the sky. In fact, one of his sons has followed in his aerospace footsteps by becoming an aerospace engineer. That same son married a woman who is currently in a field of study that is finding ways to grow food on other planets.
Osburn said he often jokes that his son and daughter-in-law will be the “first couple to colonize Mars.”
Collecting quarters and
building a nest egg
With a constant eye on the sky, Osburn moved his family from California to Utah, but focused his efforts on collecting quarters—which is a clever way of saying that he owned several laundromats. Osburn said that he loved his years in the laundromat business and even spent a lot of time reading issues of Serve Daily that he kept on hand for his customers.
“I built and ran a coin laundromat on Main Street in Spanish Fork and Payson (Nebo Laundry) for just under 20 years,” he said. “I took over an old closed down 7-11 building in Spanish Fork and turned it into a laundromat.”
As the quarters stacked up, the stars began to align and 7-11 came back and gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“7-11 bought me out and kind of retired me,” he said. “I have a small pension from the work I did on the Hubble and decided to take it all and retire in Nephi.”
With that nest egg, he built a treehouse.
But why have a treehouse under the night sky and not share it with the entire galaxy? That’s what Osburn’s daughters thought.
“I built the treehouse for family fun, and my daughters said I should turn it into an Airbnb,” Osburn said. “Before I knew it, they had me signed up for Airbnb and people started showing up, and I didn’t have a hot tub or a pavilion or fire pit area yet.”
Osburn quickly learned that people love treehouses, and as the years have gone by, he said that it has been his favorite “job” yet.
“It’s been a blast!” he said. “The tree is cradled in a massive, white poppler—the mother tree! She, just like aspens, spreads out and through her root system, grows new babies. I’ve never stopped and counted how many babies she’s got, but some of them are getting pretty good sized. They’re growing on both sides of the stream. I fertilize the tree. I’ll supplement the water making sure the tree is taken care of. I’ve landscaped every tree, plant and bush.
“This treehouse has brought people in from all over the place who I would have never dreamed of meeting,” he continued. “A Jewish rabbi from Jerusalem came here. He was not much for words, but he had his whole family here and they loved it! They were here in Utah seeing the sights. People will go to all the national parks and then stop here.”
Osburn said that even with all the world travelers, he loves when people locally will come visit.
“It’s funny because some of my customers who would do laundry at my laundromats will show up and say, ‘This is yours, John?’” he said. “I’ll run into people in Salt Lake or Utah County and they’ll ask what I do for a living and I’ll tell them that I run a luxury treehouse, and people will say “That’s yours?
“People call this John’s Oasis. It’s just magical here.”
