‘Can you build a treehouse in Trevor for our grandchildren?’

I was somewhat confused by my client’s request, until I realised Trevor was in fact a much loved 350 year old oak tree.

Trevor has provided a fabulous shady spot for people to relax on warm summer days for generations. No doubt hundreds of children have spent hours climbing his strong limbs for views across the fields or to see who was coming, and now we at High Life Treehouses have been given the privileged opportunity to build this fabulous structure and enhance the appreciation of this friendly giant even further.

Supported on stilts (no fixings into Trevor would ever be allowed), this fine treehouse is clad with wayney edge boards and it has a cedar shingle roof. It boasts two slides, two decks, a fireman’s pole, a rope bridge, swings, a cargo net and a climbing wall. There were grandchildren of all shapes and sizes to consider, and much time was spent getting the design just right!

The project was a huge success, but perhaps the best thing about it is the upper level inside the treehouse, making it the perfect place for over night stays.

I am told that even grand dad is planning to sleep out in the treehouse one night under Trevor’s trustworthy and ever watchful gaze!

I am not entirely convinced that this treehouse is for the grandchildren at all…

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In some parts of the tropics, houses are either fastened to trees or elevated on stilts to keep the living quarters above the ground to protect occupants and stored food from scavenging animals. The Korowai, a Papuan tribe in the southeast of Irian Jaya, live in tree houses, some nearly 40 metres (130 ft) high, as protection against a tribe of neighbouring head-hunters, the Citak.

Along with subterranean and ground level houses, tree houses are an option for building eco-friendly houses in remote forest areas, because they do not require a clearing of a certain area of forest. The wildlife, climate and illumination on ground level in areas of dense close-canopy forest is not desirable to some people.

Materials

Tree houses can be built with a wide range of materials. Timber is commonly used for structural parts and cladding due to its strength, light weight and low cost. Steel is used for brackets, cables and bolts, including specialized tree bolts.

There are numerous techniques to fasten the structure to the tree which seek to minimize tree damage.

The construction of modern treehouses, usually starts with the creation of a rigid platform, on which the house will be placed; the platform will lean (possibly on the corners) on the branches. In case there aren’t enough suitable supports, the methods to support the platform are:

Stay rods

They are used for relieving weights on a lower elevetion or straight to the ground; Tree houses supported by stilts weigh much less on the tree and help to prevent stress and potential strain and injury cased by puncture holes.[4] Stilts are typically anchored into the ground with concrete although new designs, such as the “Diamond Pier”, accelerates installation time and they are less invasive for the root system.[5] Stilts are considered the easiest method of supporting larger tree houses, and can also increase structural support and safety.

Struts and Stilts

They are used for relieving weights on a heigher elevation. These systems are particularly useful to control movements caused by wind or the tree growth but they are the less used, caused of the natural limits of the systems: more elevation they reach and more the branches tail off, decrease capacity, increase wind sensibility. .[6] As building materials for hanging are used ropes, wire cables, tension fasteners, springs etc.

Stay rods

Friction and tension fasteners are the most common non invasive methods of securing tree houses. They do not include nails, screws and bolts. It’s all about gripping the beams to the trunk by means of counter-beam, threaded bars or tying.

Invasive metods

Are all methods that use nails, screws, bolts, kingpin, etc. Because these methods require punctures in the tree, they have to be planned properly in order to minimize stress. Because not all species of tree suffer for puncture in the same way, depending if the sap conduits runs in the bark. Despite nails are generally not recommended, a very performance development called the treehouse attachment bolt can support greater weights than earlier methods, and is now commonly used by many tree house companies worldwide.

At High Life Treehouses, we have the wonderful challenge of making fantasies come true – your own dream treehouses! All our Treehouses are as unique as the trees in which they are built. WIth you help, and our expertise and experience, we can create a treehouse which precisely fits your visions and desires. In the world of High Life Treehouses, nothing is impossible. We’d like to invite you to browse through our brochure, enjoy some of our stories and view some of our treehouses.

“In the tallest tree of all they built a marvellous treehouse. All the birds, especially the big ones, the crows and rooks and magpies, made their nests around the treehouses so that nobody could see it from the ground.”

The Twits, by Roald Dahl

A treehouses.
A free house.
A secret you and me house.
A happy up in the leafy branches.
A happy as can be house.
A street house
A neat house.
A be sure to wipe your feet houses,
Is not the kind of house for me.
Let’s go and live in a treehouses.

Treehouse by Shel Silverstein

It seems that almost everyone likes treehouses. Smiles of recognition turn into grins of enthusiasm as more people discover them and dream about making their own private retreats of family play spaces. And it’s nice to remind ourselves that treehouses are built into the oldest and most forgiving, living things on the earth. Also, history records treehouses as being built as deliberate follies, as challenges for arboreal designers, for merrymaking, and for keeping the spirit of fairy tales alive. But treehouses can also be social places. We have built many that were built to entertain, to hang out with friends and as guest houses.

Scraping your knees and feeling the wind ruffling your hair as you climb a tree is a timeless childhood tradition. Where there are trees and humans, there has always been Treehouses – a place to sleep, to eat and to dream. Our most distant ancestors were tree-dwellers, living where they were safe from prowling animals, disease and floodwaters. Throughout history, right up to the present day, there are fascinating accounts of the building of homes in the treetops.

Many famous people have built treehouses. John Lennon had one overlooking the strawberry fields orphanage and Winston Churchill constructed a treehouse twenty feet up a lime tree at his home in Chartwell near Westerham.

Britain is home to one of the oldest treehouses still in existence. At Pitchford Hall, situated on private land near Action Burnell in Shropshire, which was constructed during the 16th century. Queen Victoria visited the tree house in 1832 when she was a young Princess.

The most famous European example though, was the restaurant dubbed ‘Les Robinsons’, eight miles west of Paris. From 1848 onwards, chic Parisians spent Sundays eating and drinking in the trees. A popular meal was roast chicken and champagne – each course hoisted up by the guest in a basket pulley. In it’s heyday there were two hundred tables available and it was a popular venue for hosting family celebrations and weddings. More than 150 years later High Life Treehouses are continuing the tradition in the UK.