Handbuilt ’70s cabin-truck puts today’s camper vans to shame

In the early 1970s, Eric Sabelman and his future wife, MaryAnn, had a love for travel, a pickup truck, and a budget that left them residing with Eric’s parents. So they decided to hit two birds with one stone and build a cabin on wheels. Now, more than five decades later, they’re reluctantly letting it go.

Meet the Trundlehouse, a head-turning redwood housecar that sits atop a 1959 GMC pickup truck. The future Mr. and Mrs. Sabelman built it in the summer of 1971 at Eric’s grandfather’s farm west of Santa Rosa, California.

“We wanted to go traveling and had no money for motels,” Eric says, “so putting a cabin on the pickup that I’d been driving seemed reasonable.”

Devout Quakers, Eric and MaryAnn had originally hoped to put the Trundlehouse on the road by July 1971 so they could attend a Quaker gathering in Oregon. That didn’t happen, but they eventually drove it north along the Pacific Coast Highway and into Canada to visit friends. Later, they took it to California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park for their honeymoon in 1972 and drove it back and forth to Los Angeles numerous times to visit MaryAnn’s parents. The couple also lived in the housecar while Eric worked on his PhD at Stanford.

“Buying a real house in 1979 pretty much ended long trips,” Sabelman says. After that, “We used it as a guest room and kids’ playhouse.”

The Trundlehouse takes its name from the word trundle, which refers to a wheeled vehicle that “moves slowly and heavily, typically in a noisy or uneven way.” But its name isn’t the only thing the housecar borrowed, since Eric Sabelman sourced reusable wood, parts, and accessories wherever he could in order to save money. While some commenters who saw the Trundlehouse on barnfinds.com have speculated that Sabelman built it using a kit or design plans, he did it all himself. From scratch.

“There were no plans,” he says. “I had examined a friend’s wood camper shell and decided how to improve it. I had two requirements: reducing the weight [by removing excess steel from the bed] and providing stand-up height without adding wind resistance—hence, the low roofline and cupola.”

Among the Trundlehouse’s oddities: The truck wears bucket seats from a 1960s Ford Mustang, seat belts from an airplane, an under-dash compass from a Sherman tank, and a tachometer that reads in roentgens, normally used to measure radiation exposure but in this case used for engine rpm. Sabelman says the “old-growth redwood siding, moldings, and closet doors are from a pre-1900 house in Santa Rosa that my father dismantled and saved.” He points out that the cabinet doors are not plywood, but 1×16 redwood.

Sabelman installed separate electrical systems so the Trundlehouse can be powered by an electrical outlet or battery. There’s also an icebox, freshwater tank, and sink, but no toilet. The cabin, which is permanently attached to the truck’s modified frame, has a folding seating/sleeping area that rests on slide-out beams. There is a crawl-through from the cabin into the truck cab.

As for any additional accouterments, Eric says, “MaryAnn did most of the interior once the carpentry was done.”

Perhaps the housecar’s coolest feature is its vintage, cast-iron Sears and Roebuck pot belly stove, which is insulated by tile walls and has a chimney that extends through the roof.

The Trundlehouse is 112 inches tall to the top of the smokestack, 228 inches long, and 84 inches wide (plus an additional 4 inches on each side where the roof overhangs). “It’s about 8 inches wider and 18 inches longer than the original bed of the 1959 GMC Wideside pickup,” Eric says, “which has a wheelbase of 126 inches and a width to the outside edge of tires of 69 inches.”

As for the truck itself, the ’59 GMC pickup is powered by a 270-cubic-inch straight-six engine, mated to a heavy duty four-speed transmission “with compound low gear and an oversize ‘school bus’ differential.”

Sabelman says the truck hasn’t run in a couple of years, and when he recently tried to start it, “it turned over OK but doesn’t seem to maintain a strong spark.” He purchased a new battery and may decide to take it to a mechanic who has worked on it before.

Unfortunately, the non-starting problem isn’t the only concern with the Sabelmans’ 52-year-old creation. Although the siding is redwood, there is termite damage in the non-redwood studs and rafters that will require repairs. Also, the cedar-shingle roof is covered in moss and mold, and Eric fears some might blow off on the road unless they’re fixed. Additionally, rust has penetrated the truck’s fenders and damaged the door hinges.

“It’s definitely a ‘fixer-upper,’” Sabelman admits.

He says he always tried to keep the truck running, and “about 10 years ago it went into the shop for radiator repair and new tires, brakes, gas tank, muffler, and tailpipe.” He also had plans to add upgrades, like a CB radio, which he purchased but never installed. Sabelman even kept the housecar’s California registration current. However, in a story as old as automobiles, the years continued to slip past and the work wasn’t completed.

“I kept putting things off because there would always be time to do it later,” Sabelman says. “The procrastination came to an end when we decided to sell our house and move, but then there was no time left to work on it.”

That move—from the couple’s Menlo Park home to Friends House, a Quaker retirement community in Santa Rosa—means there’s no place to store the Trundlehouse or work on it. Eric was thinking about giving it up long before that, however.

“Some years ago I began to realize that I would have to pass the Trundlehouse into other hands,” he says. “I would drive it around the block to keep it in running order and reminisce about places we had gone in it, not dream of new places we could go.”

Sabelman listed it on craigslist for $6000 after trying to give it away to charity. “I offered it to a local high school, and teachers really liked the idea of a project combining a number of trade classes,” he says. But the school ultimately turned down the donation, citing a rule against storing cars on campus. “Beats me how they teach autoshop without cars.”

Sabelman says he would still consider donating it to the right organization, with the hope that he be allowed to help with the restoration, but selling it will also benefit a long list of Quaker charities (which he is willing to provide upon request).

In addition to the new CB radio, included in the sale are clear old-growth redwood 2x6s and 1x12s for structural repair, a 1960s-finish dashboard AM/FM radio, timing light and engine analyzer, camping cookware and propane stove, stainless steel drinking-water tank (to replace a 5-gallon glass bottle), 60-amp 12-volt DC supply for fast battery charging and starting, and more.

“I tend to keep everything of value that passes into my hands,” Sabelman says. That includes some of the sketches he made during the building process, which he’ll give to the new owner in a binder, along with other historical material “like letters to the Menlo Park Police Dept stating that I was not storing an abandoned vehicle in my driveway, in violation of city ordinance—to which they agreed.”

Sabelman says that although his family has “wonderful memories” in the Trundlehouse, it’s time for it to go to a new home.

“I had a cousin who died about eight years ago of a brain tumor, and he left his Formula 1 racer disassembled in his garage,” he says. “If you want to keep something you value that needs work, start working on it now. Don’t wait.”

As for the Sabelmans and their precious cabin on wheels, Eric says, “Traveling in the Trundlehouse is a dream for people who are younger than MaryAnn and I.”

Perhaps he’s talking about you?

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