A Boeing 727-200 is 47 metres long and has a wingspan of 32 metres. It can carry up to 189 passengers, and was intended for short- and medium-haul domestic flights. When Boeing stopped manufacturing the airplane in 1984, each one sold for about $22 million US.

But that's not nearly what Bruce Campbell paid for his.

In 1999, Reuters reports, the former electrical engineer decided to devote himself to repurposing retired jetliners as homes to save them from the scrap heap. He paid about $100,000 US for a decommissioned 727-200, and set about retrofitting it to make a suitable home for himself on his plot of land in the Oregon woods. (The retrofitting cost an extra $120,000 US.)

Campbell, now 64, isn't the first person to make a retired jetliner his home (he was inspired by a Mississippi hair stylist who'd done it). But he may be the most enthusiastic. He launched AirplaneHome.com, on which he explains what he calls the "philosophical foundation" for his project:

Jetliners can, and should, be transformed into wonderful homes — retirement into an aerospace-class castle should be every jetliner's constructive fate. They should never be mindlessly scrapped. Shredding a beautiful and scintillating jetliner is a tragedy in waste, and a profound failure of human imagination. The time for humanity to recognize this is long, long overdue.

On the site, he also details his dream project, AirplaneHomeV2: a much larger 747-400 to be installed in Japan, where he lives for the half of the year when he's not in his 727-200.

"I think most people are nerds in their hearts in some measure," Campbell told Reuters. "The point is to have fun."

And for another look at Campbell's home, see this time lapse video:

Via Reuters