One of Jacksonville’s most unique homes is on the market.
For one thing, it has five levels. There’s a 293-foot dock. You can see the river from every room.
And, there’s a tree growing through it.
“The current owner has an ankle issue,” says Prudential Network Realty agent Jay Jason. “It has a lot of winding staircases.”
The home is in Arlington’s University Park subdivision and overlooks the river. It’s listed at $765,000 and, if the buyer pays that amount, will be a nice profit for owners Barry and Janice Barrett, who paid $240,000 in 1998. It’s now on the Property Appraiser’s records at $298,000.
The home was designed by Peruvian architect Darwin Torres and is in the shape of an arrow. To get the river views, the rooms are all on odd angles — no rectangles here.
It was built in 1978 around an oak tree which may be as much as 400 years old. It was called “The Tree House” in a 1988 Times-Union story and the name stuck.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Jason. “The buyer will be someone like a Jaguar, or maybe an energetic family. Kids would love it — where else can you climb a tree that’s almost inside your house?”
The Barretts will move a few miles away to Charter Point, where staircases and odd angles won’t be a problem to traverse.
—Fred Seely