Someone Turned an Airplane into a Home

From above, gray metal starkly contrasts with the lush green trees surrounding the instantly recognizable shape. But Bruce Campbell’s airplane nestled in the forests of Oregon isn’t just a monument to humankind’s feats of engineering and mastery of aerodynamics… it’s his home.

Bruce’s Boeing 727-200—which he purchased for about $100,000 (and spent another $120,000 moving into place and turning the interior into a living space)—can weather earthquakes, storms, and wind. There are no rodents or termites when your main building materials are aluminum and titanium. Floods and fire aren’t risks, either. Imagine all the forces an airplane withstands in the air, and you can understand how it could be an impressive home that stacks up against the elements.

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Of course plane living isn’t for everyone. The interiors of Bruce’s home have been shaped by function to fit his specific needs. It’s an incredibly unique home, but it’s also an enviously custom one.

One of my favorite things about Bruce and his unusual but personal home is how willing he is to share it. On his website, AirplaneHome.com, there are pages dedicated to explaining just how someone can go about visiting his home, and even scheduling an interior tour. Just be prepared to see a home truly lived in and used; Bruce often works on fabrication projects, does investing on the computer, as well as accomplishes the daily tasks that happen in any type of home.

“I’m genuinely happy to provide full, cheerful, and flexible access but guests stream through my personal home almost daily and often sans an appointment so it’s impractical to try to segregate my private life from my aircraft’s public role,” he writes on the visitor information page.

Interested in knowing what it’s like to sleep in an airplane… when it’s not flying in the air? Bruce opens his home up for overnight lodgers, too. The airplane home is even host to concerts.

For Bruce, the switch to airplane living from more traditional types of houses hasn’t just been a one-off experiment; spreading the gospel of planes as houses has become a mission. He’s currently working on a second iteration, which will be located in Japan: AirplaneHomeV2.com. “Provincial homes can be quite nice,” reads a line from the website. “But they simply can’t match the sheer exhilaration and existential thrill of a gorgeous shimmering sleek aerospace class castle.”

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