Graying hippie lives in treehouse in urban Miami neighborhood

AP ^ | August 9, 2007 | KELLI KENNEDY

[ConservativeStatement]

MIAMI -- This graying hippie makes the nightly, winding climb 18 feet to her cozy bedroom. She wakes to roosters' crows and the scents of dewy soil. Over breakfast, her view is a jungle of towering trees, no hint of concrete civilization.

Shawnee Chasser lives in a treehouse above a secret garden in the middle of Miami. For 15 years, she has lived atop the 1.5-acre nirvana of green trees and farm animals behind a row of houses 10 minutes from downtown.

Neighbors come for potlucks, drum circles and weekly volleyball games. Tenants who rent the extra bedrooms hang out in the open kitchen. It is exactly the peaceful paradise Chasser envisioned when her brother and others built the three-story treehouse months before Hurricane Andrew devastated the area in 1992.

[ConservativeStatement]

Maybe this is what Queen Hillary had in mind with the funding of a museum for hippies.

[Badeye]

I thought it was a report concerning the unemployed owner of liberty post....(chuckle)

[dfwgator]

There isn’t enough Lysol to make me want to come anywhere near there.

[tioga]

museum for hippies.

I thought that was his presidential library.

[L98Fiero]

When exactly did mental illness become celebrated in this country?

[Vision]

The generation given everything, that refused to grow up.

No wonder the country has the problems we have.

[ConservativeStatement]

[mysterio]

Sounds pretty cool actually. Too bad there are no pictures of the treehouse.

[Jaysun]

Weird, kinda neat story. I’d hoped that most of the hippies would be dead by now. You’d think so with all of the drugs and STDs. But I guess they’ll be gone soon enough.

[KosmicKitty]

Start playing a Slayer CD really loud - that will run them off!

[Vision]

http://www.myspace.com/earthnusfarm

[ConservativeStatement]

See post 7. :-)

[reagan_fanatic]

Neighbors come for potlucks, drum circles ...

Mmmm-mmm - I can just smell the matted armpit hair and fungus-infested toe jam from here.

[mnehring]

What I never understood about hippies (neo or paleo) is the utter selfishness of their existence. What do they do, really, to make the world a better place? Do they honestly think that sitting around a drum circle, chanting about peace while smoking pot will really help feed a starving kid or clean up the trash on the streets.. I guess that really is the core of liberalism, apathy.. not doing something yourself, just complaining someone else (ie, the government) isn’t doing it..

[Lurker]

But I guess they’ll be gone soon enough.

Not soon enough for me.

L

[B-Chan]

Pardon me for asking, but why are you harshing on this lady? She’s paying her bills and taxes, which gives her the right to live in a treehouse if she damn well wants to. Aren’t you guys always crowing about our right as Americans to live the way we please on our own land?

I can’t stand hippies either, but different strokes, fella. She pays her own way and isn’t hurting anybody as far as I can see. If she wants to perch in a tree, that’s her business, and I’m damn sure not going to criticize her for it.

[whitedog57]

Bill, Hillary, Kerry, etc. These ARE the hippies from the 60s. They are alive and well and will be running the entire Federal government in 2008.

Face it. The Federal government is now the enemy of the people. Its as if the spirit of Huey Long was reborn in Hillary and the rest of the Dems.

Prepare for 8 years of darkness with social and economic rot when Hillary wins the Presidency. If you think voter fraud has been bad in the past, wait until the True Believers come out in force for Her Majesty.

[headsonpikes]

Potlucks, drum circles, treehouses ... I never realized the little B.C. mountain community I live in had so much in common with Miami!

One big difference - winter.

[mnehring]

Here is a picture of their 'tree house'.. I have a feeling armpits aren't the only thing that smells.

[L98Fiero]

“She’s paying her bills and taxes, which gives her the right to live in a treehouse if she damn well wants to.”

Lots of us pay our taxes, go to work and do all we can to raise a good family and good kids to be productive citizens. When we start to get the kind of ink these tree-dwelling kooks get, I’ll ease up.