Here’s a story that I saw on page A13 of the August 5 edition of one of our local papers, the Province. It features a $4.5 million treehouse that a couple, Shaun and Stephanie Mesher, had built for them near Comox on Vancouver Island. The original building estimate was $900, 000; it just ballooned from there.
This is an absolutely massive treehouse, which took 4 years to complete. The treehouse is situated in the middle of a stand of trees and is elevated above the ground with a water distribution system that hydrates the roots beneath the house as if it weren’t even there.
The house incorporates solar panels whose excess power feeds back into the hydro grid. They also hand dug the holes for the concrete footings in order to avoid damaging the roots — a project that consumed half of the total building budget! Expensive endeavours like these prove that the owners went well out of their way to respect their natural surroundings.
Hats off to the Meshers for spending so much time and money to accommodate nature. They could far more easily and cheaply built the same structure without any consideration for their surroundings as happens the vast majority of the time. They’ve shown that a treehouse doesn’t have to be small or ephemeral. It can be as solidly built and as massive as any permanent structure.
Images: The Province