The Aliens have landed
Cap d’Antibes Tree house
This futuristic pod is not your every day Cap d’Antibes tree house. Hidden away in a Cap d’Antibes back street you would be forgiven for not noticing it. I have walked past it many times and never seen it until a friend told me about it’s existence. Using my cunning detective skills I tracked down the owners and asked if I could take some photos and also ask them about how the pod came to be on the Cap. Actually I am surprised that more Cap d’Antibes villas don’t have tree houses, especially with all the pine trees around. Maybe they do but I just can’t see them. What I do know is that there definitely isn’t another tree pod on the Cap. In fact the owners tell me that it is the only one in France. It may even be the only one of it’s kind anywhere.
How did you come to own your unique tree house?
I saw a wooden one several years ago on the internet or in a magazine article. Straight away I googled the company and found the pods were made by a guy called Tom at free spirit Spheres in Canada. I mentioned the pods to my husband because I thought they were so cool. We are both very into the lovely bubble houses over in Theole sur mer. Ultimately we would love to live in one of those but that’s just a dream so a pod seemed like the next best thing.
Anyway this guy Tom, who builds the pods, has a forrest in Canada with several of them hanging in the trees. He uses them as bed and breakfast accommodation which is really cool. We contacted Tom to see if we could buy a pod from him but the only one available was this green fibre glass one. We really liked the green so we bought it. As far as we know it’s the only one that he has ever sold. The rest he uses as accommodation.
At the time we didn’t realise what an expense and effort it would be to get it from Canada to the South of France.
It didn’t fit in a container, so travelled on the deck of a container ship to Marseille. Then it had to travel by road in the middle of the night with a convoy of vehicles, due to it’s size.
Did it cost a lot to get it here?
Yes, all of that wasn’t cheap. When it arrived we then had to get it craned into our garden. It didn’t end there either.
Following that we had to find engineers to hang it in the trees. That was another headache.
Not only did we have to find someone who could work out the whole engineering of it as it didn’t come with any instructions. We had to find someone to establish if our trees were strong enough etc. and, more importantly, someone who was willing to do it.
Consequently we had it sitting for about a year on this wooden base which Tom had created to ship it. The whole process from buying the pod to it hanging in the trees took about 18 months. We have forgotten about the stress of it now but it wasn’t a simple process at all.
Do you use it often?
Well originally we bought it for our kids who were 1 and 3 at the time but they don’t really use it that much in reality. The girls haven’t liked going in there because over the winter you get spiders and things. When we have people over with children their kids go in it but that’s it really.
It has ended up more as a piece of art I guess.
We still love it though. I don’t regret buying it even though it doesn’t get a lot of use. I know that no one else here has one so that’s a bit special isn’t it?
It’s certainly a talking point that’s for sure!
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