To me, childhood dreams, fantasies and treehouses are directly linked.
As a child I always dreamed of owning a tree house, a big one, one where elves could live nearby, high up so that it is all hidden in the leafy branches away from our parents spying eyes. My brother did for a while have a little platform high up in a tree. You had to climb up it with a rope and it was very hard to do, on top of which girls were not allowed. I didn't care though it was to tricky to get up to that tiny little platform.
When I married and had 3 boys, my husband built a treehouse for our 3 sons. It was made of old lumber from our neighbor who built a very nice family room extension on his house. Our boys always played with the girls next door (they grew up like brothers and sisters) and so in this treehouse girls were allowed. Lots of friends also came around and enjoyed that treehouse and a marvelous place to arrange a water fight from, just so long as you had water. When you ran out of water and had to hoist more up with a bucket you stood the chance of getting absolutely drenched by the ground attack.
Longwood Gardens built 3 treehouses to inspire and conjure up our childhood fantasies and hopefully inspire us to build a treehouse for our kids and grandkids...........
Nick - Reminds me of Swiss Family Robinson, a film I loved when I was younger. Beautiful photos here, eliciting a nostalgic breath of childhood youth and dreams.
Nick.... this is really cool. I built a treehouse when I was younger. It was about about 20 feet up... that might not seem high up, but when you are building it by yourself and you are about 14 years old, that's high. lol Besides, I remember using my own money to give to my dad and we would go to the lumber store to pick out the wood and such. In any case, the one that you have listed, would be fun as an adult.
These treehouses far surpass the ones my brothers and I built way back when. Great pics!
Thanks all, this was Trudy's first post. She loves gardening and I felt she should develop her own niche by blogging about that. She went to Longwood Gardens with a friend and saw all these very neat treehouses. As you say nothing like we built when we were younger or even older. What I built for the boys, our sons was not at this level at all.