EIt creaks softly in the beams as a breeze rustles the branches of the giant arborvitae in whose arms I have taken up quarters. Five meters above the rainforest floor east of Seattle, my tree house nestles against the trunk of the mighty cypress tree, which is little impressed by the wind. Alone on the wooden ceiling above my bunk bed, the shadows of the billowing tips of the branches play a mysterious theater of silhouettes.
“Trillium” is the name of the two-storey tree house – it is one of seven in Treehouse Point, a bed and breakfast on a four-acre site on the Raging River east of Seattle, which is reminiscent of JRR Tolkien’s Hobbit-Shire: Between ferns and babbling brooks and With moss-covered branches, you walk under the tree houses through an idyllic little forest, in which the lights of the treetop quarters shimmer through the foliage and needle network.
One of the treehouses at Treehouse Point in Issaquah
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Image: Nina Rehfeld
They have catchy names like “Ananda” or “Temple of the Blue Moon” and are the fulfillment of a childhood dream that Pete Nelson has had since he was five. At that time he moved into his first tree house, built by his father behind the garage in New Jersey. Today Nelson is 60 and a superstar of the tree house scene. From 2013 to 2015 he built other people’s dream houses in the forest on the reality show “Treehouse Masters”. The trained carpenter, who also completed a degree in economics, has built more than 350 tree houses to date. With his wife Judy and their three adult children, he runs the Nelson Treehouse company in Fall City, a few miles away. his former own home on the Raging River is now the intimate Lodge of Treehouse Point. It houses an excellent breakfast kitchen and a small library. Treehouse Point is an insider tip for stressed city dwellers from Seattle, which is less than half an hour’s drive away.
Tree swallows bike
The Nelsons now run two other bed and breakfasts in the trees in Maine and Texas, but have retired from television “so that they can take care of their grandchildren,” according to Bree Monahan, who runs Treehouse Point. Monahan shows me a photo of a bike that appears to have been swallowed up by a growing tree—half the frame and rear wheel are gone in the tree—to illustrate the stability of the treehouses. “We build our homes in trees that are young adults,” she says. “As the tree continues to grow, it perceives the treehouse fixtures as a kind of new branch.
It grows around them, reinforcing the supports.” It’s rare, she says, to feel the trees sway in the wind because the Issaquah Plateau provides a natural windbreak. The biggest challenge for Treehouse Point was getting city permits because there were no building codes for treehouses. Thanks to Pete Nelson, they now exist.
Sleep high: One of the two-storey tree houses in Issaquah
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Image: Nina Rehfeld
Next to the lodge, a yoga class is taking place in the open space of the adjacent building, where you can also enjoy a massage; A spacious cedar bathhouse amidst the grounds invites you to take a shower (the treehouses have toilets and sinks).
It’s just a few steps down to the Raging River. I sit down on a moss-covered stone. The rippling of the water mixes with the soft rustling of the treetops, the tree houses have long since become part of the forest. And if a few dancing fairies appeared here among the furry mosses, the drooping beard lichens and fanned out ferns, you wouldn’t be surprised either.
Between $300 and $600 per night, depending on treehouse and season: treehousepoint.com