Popular children’s author Andy Griffith is selling the Williamstown seaside house that has been an inspiration for his recent writing.
Griffith, author of the Just! books and The Day My Bum Went Psycho, said his four-level home at 2/113 Esplanade had provided inspiration for his current Treehouse series, co-written and edited with wife Jill and illustrated by Terry Denton.
“We’d all be sitting there … just looking out at the world from that beautiful second-floor aspect so it felt like we were in a treehouse,” Griffith said.
“We were involved in a make-believe game … creating the books, looking out of our treehouse. It made me feel like I was 10 years old in my cousin’s treehouse. You don’t come that far, really, from your childhood.”
The 52-Storey Treehouse was named ‘book of the year’ in the 2015 Australian Book Industry Awards and was Australia’s best-selling book in 2014.
The Esplanade house is listed for auction on June 13 at 11am with an asking price of $1.4-1.5 million.
“It’s a unique property … when we saw it we just went, ‘this is amazing’,” Griffith said.
“We can work at home and yet the whole world is right there. You feel like you’re locked away somewhere.”
Griffith is moving to a new home in the Williamstown area. He is among 70 authors who will appear at the Williamstown Literary Festival from June 13-14.
