Woman Buys Home Accessible Only by Tram – and Reveals Extraordinary Effort It Took to Move In (Exclusive)

If privacy is what you’re looking for, you can’t get much further than Courtney Johnson’s house in Austin, Texas, which can only be reached by streetcar

Johnson, a 28-year-old content creator, tells PEOPLE that she bought the house six months ago, but had known about it for years. (Technically, the house is accessible by funicular: a cable car that ascends the cliff on which her house is built.)

“This particular house used to be an Airbnb and I saw it, printed it out and posted it on my vision board in high school,” she says. “All these years later, that’s the house I ended up buying.”

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The fact that the house requires a tram ride to the front door has put off some buyers, she admits – but not her.

“It was on the market for a while… but I live in a neighborhood full of hippies, so honestly, my house isn’t even the weirdest thing in the area,” he says with a laugh.

Courtney Johnson.

Courtney Johnson/TikTok

Hers is the only house east of the Rocky Mountains that can only be reached by tram, she says, adding that the chairlift holds about six adults at a time, making it an easy way to transport groceries.

“It’s a lot easier than when I lived in an apartment and had to walk up the stairs and down the hall with my groceries. Now I just put my bags on the streetcar and it brings them up,” she tells PEOPLE.

Move-in day was a bigger challenge. “I’ve been moving in slowly. I’m still kind of moving in and it’s been six months,” she says, adding that she’s been taking apart furniture and moving it piece by piece, but has a cargo attachment that can be used to haul larger appliances, like a refrigerator.

There is a way to get home on foot, though Johnson says it requires a mostly uphill, 15-minute climb through her neighbors’ yards (which, she’s learned the hard way, is better done in sneakers than high heels if the streetcar happens to be out of service).

Courtney Johnson Streetcar House.

Courtney Johnson/TikTok

But the tram is the easiest way to enter the home and takes three minutes to reach the first stop (its front door) and three minutes and thirty seconds to reach the second stop (the upstairs guest bedroom, complete with its own private space). entrance).

She admits that there are some challenges — namely, maintenance of the tram itself.

“There are tram maintenance companies here because some people have trams to go to their docks,” she notes.

Tram House Courtney Johnson and her dog Pepa.

Courtney Johnson/TikTok

And while the streetcar itself hasn’t broken down, it stops working during a power outage (or any kind of hard freeze that paralyzes the Texas power grid).

He notes that there is also a lot of confusion among those who encounter the tram for the first time.

“Deliveries sometimes go crazy,” she admits, adding that she puts “seat on the streetcar” in the delivery instructions for Amazon drivers.

Courtney Johnson Streetcar House.

Courtney Johnson/TikTok

And while the late architect Ray Brown designed the house to look like a fishbowl, Johnson says it looks more like a “crazy, fancy treehouse”—albeit quite remote.

Courtney Johnson Streetcar House.

Courtney Johnson/TikTok

“I’m not necessarily a private person. I’m a content creator on social media,” she says. “But I love getting away from the city and having my own little space to escape and be in nature. It’s a really peaceful place to live.”

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Source: HIS Education