To most people, living in a treehouse with no running water or electricity on a Tennessee farm might seem eccentric. But for David Riemens, a Michigan native who grew up with five siblings, living off-grid in the Volunteer State became his paradise.

“David wanted to leave a very small footprint on the earth,” Julie McManus, who was married to Riemens for 10 years, told The Daily Beast. “We never thought of ourselves as ‘hippies’ but everyone called us that. We were just focused on helping—not hurting—the planet.”

A “kind and compassionate person” who had an affinity for hitchhiking, Riemens moved to Tennessee in 1976 with his wife and a group of friends who wanted to “live as close to nature as possible,” she recalled.

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