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How to live in a treehouse

A house on the ground is just a house. But a house in the trees? Now we've moved into the terrain of favorite childhood fantasies. It might be the castaway Swiss Family Robinson and their beloved shipwreck treehouse, or Tarzan's ingenious jungle treehouse. You might think of the comfortable hollow tree house of Winnie the Pooh's friend Owl, or the elfin city of the Galadhrim in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Treehouses evoke deep, sometimes strange, emotions. They may remind us of happy childhood days spent building dens and hideaways. Whatever the emotional impact, there is no doubt being in a treehouse is an entirely different experience than "ground living."

And they have a remarkable history. Treehouses have long been used by the people of the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. The Kombai and Korowai of New Guinea traditionally lived in treehouses "like nests of giant birds," according to one visitor. In the 1700s, the English navigator Capt. James Cook recorded an encounter with treetop dwellers in Tasmania.

In the Western world, treehouses were leisure fantasies. The Roman emperor Caligula held sumptuous banquets in a giant tree. During the Renaissance, members of the Medici family vied with each other to create the most magnificent marble treehouse. In Tudor England, Queen Elizabeth I dined in a house in a massive linden tree.

A new dimension of treehouses is their use as quickly erected structures to house activists protesting against tree felling and road building. A renowned example is the "treesit" by Julia Butterfly Hill in a California redwood, begun in 1997 . In the United Kingdom, many protest treehouses have come and gone since the first in 1993.

Treehouses today are undergoing a renaissance. Much credit for this must go to pioneers like Peter Nelson ("Mr. Treehouse" to his friends), co-founder of Treehouse Workshop. Nelson has inspired many to take up treehouse building and given enough building advice to get anyone started.

A number of specialist professional companies Treehouse Workshop and PearTree (TreeHouse) Ltd. in Scotland among them - will undertake the whole process from design to construction. There is even a World Treehouse Association, a network for treehouse dreamers, builders and residents who get together and share experiences at an annual conference at Michael Garnier's Out 'n' About Resort in Oregon.

Whether you want a refuge and retreat, a place for peaceful study and meditation, or even a permanent home, building up might be the solution. A treehouse can be just a simple deck with a rope ladder or an ambitious three-story structure with a living area, bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen.

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