How to build an Ewok village

(See more coolest treehouses over at AOL Property.)

Everyone knows that the best thing about Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is the Ewok village.

(Actually, apart from the bit with the speeder bike chase, the Ewok village is the only good thing in that film...)

Even if you disagree, we're sure you wish you could live in a magical treetop paradise anyway. Muppets or no Muppets.

So what if you could life in an Ewok village? Where would you build it? What would it look like? And how could you convince Princess Leia to live there with you?

Let us take you through what you need to move into your own personal Endor...



Step One -- try before you buy...

You may be sure you want to live in an Ewok village while you're sat on your sofa watching 'Jedi' for the hundredth time. But are you sure you're cut out for treetop living?

It might be an idea to go on a treehouse holiday for a couple of days first, to see if you can cope with the lack of facilities, control your crippling vertigo and deal with the fact that you live alone in a tree.

The Treehouse Guide has a ton of links for treehouse resorts and hotels around the world, from the Hawaiian island of Maui to St. Andrew's in Scotland. Some -- like these cabins in Australia have all of the luxuries you'd expect from a normal hotel. Others are a bit more rugged. Either way, you'll know a lot more about the reality of treetop life once you've actually tried it.

After the jump, finding a plot to build your village, what it will look like and how to install your WiFi hook-up to play Force Commander from the branches...

Step Two -- where will you build it?

So you've decided you're committed to the trees. But where are you going to construct your house?

We think you have three choices here.

First, you could buy a regular house with a tree in the back garden, build a treehouse in that tree and just pretend that you live in there. This is the simplest option, but probably not what you had in mind.

Second, you could choose to live in a dedicated treehouse community. The Finca Bellavista Rainforest Village in Costa Rica, where a bunch of ecologists are trying to conserve a 300-acre area of rainforest by "offering a unique opportunity for ecologically minded property owners to live sustainably in... a managed rainforest environment", is a good example of such a place.



A two-acre plot at Finca Bellavista goes for around £27,000. "We've had an interesting mix of buyers," said Erica Hogan, the co-founder of Finca Bellavista, in a recent interview. "Some are about to retire and are looking for an active retirement home, others are families looking at being here during summer/winter breaks, some are building vacation getaways in the trees with an intent to rent out their treehouse the other portion of the year."



If you're really intent on going it alone you could also try and buy some undeveloped land in a forest and start from scratch. But this is really, really tricky and you can pretty much forget about anyone letting you do it in the US or the UK. Not only are suitable plots hard to come by at a reasonable price, but you'll have to tackle bureaucracy hell to get permission to build anything.

Step Three -- who will design it?

There are dozens of companies worldwide dedicated to treehouse design. Of course it goes (almost) without saying that a decent treehouse will cost you a serious chunk of change. The most expensive can easily cost £200,000 or more to build, and that doesn't include the price of the land.

You get what you pay for, though, and so does the environment. The best treetop designers work with the limitations of a specific plot, and have more than one eye to sustainability.

Companies like the TreeHouse Workshop in Seattle, USA, build natural-looking houses to fit -- and not destroy -- their location. Likewise, Blueforest is a UK company that takes on jobs from small garden treehouses to full on £150k+ superstructures.

Other designs, such as this amazing house by Lukasz Kos, are more idiosyncratic than traditional wood-and-rope models. But crucially they are still sustainable and okay for wildlife.



We also like the look of Free Spirit Spheres and their unique tree pods, Baumraum, and 02Sustainability, all of whom will help you design a treetop kingdom. Check out our gallery of the coolest treehouses (above) to see some of their work, and see some more cool ideas at WebUrbanist.

Step Four -- will the treehouse be comfortable?

As usual for this type of caper -- see also our guides to buying a castle and a private island -- you're going to have to pay through the nose for extras like heating, clean water and waste disposal. It is possible, though, to live quite comfortably in the trees. The Finca Bellavista community just hooked up their first WiFi connection last year, and power it entirely through solar energy. Neat.

Conclusion

To pull this off you'll need more than a collector's box-set of Star Wars. You're going to need patience, money and the ability to not get bored living in a tree, and that's just for starters. But if you succeed, and you don't give up or die, we'll put up with watching 'Jedi' again if you let us come over for a beer.

Next Week: How to build your own Cloud City on Bespin.*

*Just kidding.