You enter the Hamptons house through two magnificent sliding doors salvaged from an 1880s barn. The built-in rustic-chic furniture is custom crafted. Secret wall panels open onto a back deck with drop-dead views.
On movie nights, the owner (a private-equity CEO) touches a button and a 60-by-40-inch plasma screen glides down from a discreet ceiling console. It sounds like any other fabulous East End trophy house, and it is. Except that this one sits 30 feet off the ground in the branches of four ancient Japanese cedars.
"People think 'treehouse' and imagine creaky plywood forts where kids sneak away to have their first kiss," says Roderick Romero, the Manhattan designer who built that Long Island aerie in 2009. "But it's moved so far beyond that."
Above and beyond, actually. A new generation of luxury treehouses is elevating the dream, with designs and prices no sidewalk lemonade stand could finance.
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"People think 'treehouse' and imagine creaky plywood forts where kids sneak away to have their first kiss," says Roderick Romero, the Manhattan designer who built that Long Island aerie in 2009. "But it's moved so far beyond that."
Above and beyond, actually. A new generation of luxury treehouses is elevating the dream, with designs and prices no sidewalk lemonade stand could finance.
Minneapolis woodworker Dustin Feider of 02 Treehouse (www.o2sustainability.com) builds his sustainable treehouses from materials that don't inhibit surrounding arbor growth. Past designs have included ziplines and translucent plastic panels.
"With the modern tree dwellings we're building, it's architecture meets high adventure," says Andreas Wenning, of Baumraum. His firm's streamlined steel-and-wood-framed pods are more Bauhaus than clubhouse. One atop several larch trees in Kehl, Germany, resembles a futuristic barrel on giant toothpicks alongside a floating raft. "These are fantasy cocoons," limited only by a client's imagination and budget, said Wenning, whose projects start at $30,000. "One client wanted to hit golf balls from his tree terrace so he had us design a tee platform with removable railings."
In Seattle uber-carpenter Nelson has been advancing arboreal design for a decade with popular coffee-table books like 2009's New Treehouses of the World (Abrams) and as a chief branch swinger at TreeHouse Workshop. In addition to the Ramona marvel (which, sadly, was destroyed during 2008's San Diego wildfires), Nelson and his team built a sprawling tree cathedral in the style of a Norwegian stave church at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
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Image: Cone Treehouse