There comes a point in life when we must trade in our treasured toys: The Matchbox car becomes a Mazda. The tricycle is scrapped for a touring bike. But some playthings, and play spaces, make such a deep imprint on our developing psyches, we’re loath to give them up. Enter the adult tree house. If you didn’t inherit your parents’ building skills, don’t despair. Several companies have sprouted up to cater to big kids who will pay to play. Today’s custom-built projects have all the majesty of a makeshift fort, plus an architectural polish that we, as tykes, could never have imagined.

Seattle’s TreeHouse Workshop, cofounded by Jake Jacob and Pete Nelson, concocts luxury perches for grown-ups. The pair launched the company eight years ago, at the height of the dot-com boom, when workaholics with plenty of surplus cash started commissioning them to build backyard hideaways. “Usually people have this association—their dad cobbled together some plywood and peach baskets or something,” Nelson says. “Or they loved Swiss Family Robinson and watched it 23 times.”

But unlike the Robinson Family’s little sky lodge, slapped together with scrap wood and rope, TreeHouse Workshop’s creations are more like arboreal penthouses, often outfi tted with indoor plumbing, electricity, fi replaces (a risky extravagance), a bedroom, built-in furniture, even a Jacuzzi. Jacob and Nelson have built structures from 50 to 1,000 square feet, ranging in price from $4,500 to $200,000 (a year-round residence costs at least $18,000). Most of TreeHouse Workshop’s customers are folks who already have a boat, or a third car, or an RV: This is what the guy who has everything gets for his birthday.

Take Sting, for example, whose Tuscan tree house, designed by Roderick Romero, is used for meditation. Todd Oldham’s rustic log cabin, which sits high in the treetops on his property outside New York, is reserved for guests and weekend sleepaways. Adult tree houses are home offices, art studios, yoga rooms, and even, once in a great while, playhouses for the kids. For John Gathright, who lives in a tree house made from recycled 140- year-old miso barrels atop temple lands in Japan, the choice of lodging has an environmental agenda: The barrels would have been burned had he not reused them. It’s also the centerpiece of his work, a tree-climbing therapy program that he runs for everyone from adventure travelers to paraplegics.

“Our tree house is not an adult toy, but a platform for sharing,” Gathright says. But he confesses that he loves it as much as any kid, notwithstanding a few sacrifices. “Living in the forest means sharing our resources with all types of bugs, fungi, and moss,” he says.

Tom Chudleigh, of Denman Island, British Columbia, designed and lives in a spherical tree house—a cedar and fiberglass orb, nine feet in diameter, that hangs from the branches. As with Gathright, his intention had more to do with finding a way to live in nature without damaging it than it did with revisiting his youth. “Immersing yourself in a sphere in the trees is so out of the ordinary,” he explains, “that it helps people break out of that old mindset and opens them to new experiences.” Chudleigh plans to sell do-it-yourself Free Spirit Sphere kits later this year. The dwellings can be set in place with a helicopter for around $30,000 a pop.

Some custom tree houses are still constructed the traditional way: scrap lumber and a sturdy tree. Jeff Etelamaki’s double-tree house, designed for a friend’s two children who’d sketched out what they wanted, looks like a pre-fab duplex tossed into the boughs. Each unit sits on its own trunk, connected by a bridge. “I wanted to make it about the trees,” Etelamaki says, so the location of branches dictated where the windows fell.

These designers, whether amateur or professional, are reinventing the look and maybe even the definition of the tree house. There are perches built on stilts, observation towers nestled in the pines, and suspended husks swaying between trees like a hammock. You don’t even need to have a sturdy redwood in the backyard. Today’s dwellings can be ordered with their own artifi cial tree.

So if you never got a tree house when you were young, it’s not too late to spoil your inner child. “Every kid dreams about going to outer space and having a tree house,” says Jacob. “Most of us don’t get to go to outer space.”

 

Movin' On Up: Tips for Building Your Own Woodsy Digs

The “house” part of building a tree house is easy. It’s choosing the right tree and rigging the structure that require careful consideration. Jake Jacob, who, as cofounder of Seattle’s TreeHouse Workshop, has built custom retreats in 24 states and all over the world, gives this advice to aspirants.

LOCATION
Climate: Your enemies are snow and lightning. Snow is heavy, so assume that your structure will weigh twice as much during winter as it does in summer, and make sure your tree can support the extra heft. If your area is prone to electrical storms, consider keeping your dwelling low to the ground and building it in a densely wooded area rather than in a lone tree.

Tree Type: Deciduous trees (hardwood, leaf-dropping varieties such as maples and oaks) and coniferous trees (softwood evergreens like pines and fi rs) will both support a house, but deciduous trees are host to a sprawling branch system, which makes a platform easier to place.

Local Conditions: Have a look at nearby trees. Are they rotting? Losing branches at their tops? Jacob rarely proceeds without the advice of a qualified arborist. If you go it alone, make sure other trees in the area look healthy, and check the Web for disease warnings in your region.

Human Habitation: Is the area ripe for new development? If a subdivision goes up next year, it won’t just ruin the meditative quality of your retreat. It might also
bring down nearby stands of trees that protect yours from wind, which means you’ll be popping Dramamine in your lofty chamber when it gets gusty.

Power Lines: Wood insulates against electric shock, but if your swaying tree rubs you up against a wire, you’re toast. Stay away from power lines, and plan for the possibility of new wires going up in the future.

Building Codes: The International Building Code, adopted this year by every state in the continental U.S., allows you to build an enclosed structure of 200 square feet or less without a permit. But local regulations can vary, so check them before you begin. Jacob says that when inspectors show up, 90 percent of the time it’s because a neighbor complained, so make sure the family next door is on board from the outset (one effective tactic is offering to share the house with their kids).

Grading: A trunk shouldn’t emerge as a perfect cylinder from the ground. If yours does, landscaping has probably piled earth up around the tree, and building a tree house will further choke off its oxygen. Make sure the base of your tree flares like a bugle just where it touches the ground. If not, either regrade the surface or choose another tree.

CONSTRUCTION
It’s Alive! Trees grow and shift and bow, so make sure your structure can accommodate the changes. The upside is that they will, over time, add wood to their mass to support the added weight. Help ease the load by confi ning construction to the lower third of the trunk.

Perch, Don’t Pin: Jacob’s platforms sit on branch structures. Where there are none, he builds a few from lumber and adds them to the tree with a bolt system he created. Resting the platform atop strong boughs allows it to adjust over time, whereas simply bolting a platform to a trunk doesn’t allow for flexibility.

Minimize Stab Wounds: Pierce the tree in as few places as possible, and make sure the gashes are as far from one another as possible so that they can heal. “One very large, thoughtfully installed bolt is stronger, and does much less damage, than a bunch of smaller bolts,” Jacob says.

Smart Drilling: Every summer, Jacob gets dozens of calls from do-it-yourselfers who’ve managed to get their drill bits stuck in a trunk. Living trunks are full of moisture and sap, so use a high-quality auger bit, which is designed to remove chips, and back out periodically to clear the hole of debris. Do not, under any circumstance, use a spade bit—you’ll never see it again.

RESOURCES
The U.S. Forestry Department posts news and information about diseases and how to identify tree types.
The International Society of Arboriculture has a search function for fi nding certified arborists in your area who can help you assess your chosen tree.
Out ’n’ About Outfitters is a great builder’s resource, with plans and advice.
TreeHouse Workshop Inc.  features galleries of past and ongoing projects by Jake Jacob’s company, as well as a very helpful FAQ section.