Indian civil engineer at home in a mango tree

Udaipur, India: Almost a decade ago when K.P. Singh declared he wanted to build a house atop a tree, people thought he was building castles in the air.

But six months after he had started what people called a "preposterous project", the civil engineer could actually boast of a house in the air, some nine feet above ground level. It wasn't the fortified residence of a prince, but what Singh had put together was no less than a castle.

Today Singh receives congratulatory calls sitting in his study perched on a big bough. His tree house in the Lake City of India, Udaipur, has found pride of place in the Limca Book of Records.

Singh's tree house is truly a case of owner's pride and neighbour's envy but, way back in 1999, when he first got to work on it, a record was not on his mind — all he wanted to do was protect the 65-year-old mango tree, which now supports his three-storied house.

Feeling like a misfit

Singh, a septuagenarian, quit government service in 1978 when he found himself a misfit in the "bureaucratic set-up" and decided to start his own business.

In June 1999, he heard about a person carving out plots from his vast property with an eye on the immense profits. A mango tree faced the axe on one of the plots.

Singh approached the owner of the property with a request for the plot on which the mango tree stood. He said he wanted to build a house on the plot without cutting the tree.

"People said I must be out of my mind to get such laughable thoughts. Some suggested an asylum would be a better place for me to be in but I was intent on taking up the challenge," Singh recalls.

In December 1999, the house was ready. It had two bedrooms, study and living spaces, open-air sit-outs, a kitchen, two bathrooms and balconies.

"I still remember the expression on people's faces when they first saw the house. Incredulity morphed into envy. Suddenly everyone wanted to own the tree house," Singh recalls.

The house is nine feet high from the ground up and stands 45 feet tall, three floors taken together. A design that borrows from a natural valley helps the tree house present very little resistance to the wind. All these years later, it has not witnessed any untoward incident.

Singh is a conservationist to the core: he recharges groundwater with the water used in the house. "Water used in the toilet is high on bacteria; I treat it before it is used in the garden," he says.

Open invitation

Doesn't he get queries for duplicating his experiment? "Of course, I do," he says.

"But I have laid out three preconditions for anyone wishing to have such a house. One, there should be no insistence on three floors. The number of floors would depend on the tree that is central to the plans; two, no tree should be chopped, and; three, the person concerned should promote tree plantation by example. People know my nature and they can never lie to me. No one, all these years, has been able to satisfy the three conditions, and hence you don't see another tree house in the city or anywhere else, for that matter."

Singh is only too happy to share his "airspace" with any guests. Nests don't have doors, he says. So, the next time you are in Udaipur, don't forget to check out Singh's nest.

Have your say
Do you know of any other unique houses? Where? Would you ever consider owning such a property? Why? Tell us at
letter2editor@gulfnews.com