Leafing the World Behind

A rustic treehouse getaway for the young — and young at heart

By M ar i a Johnson • P hotogr aPhs By John ge ssner

CHINA GROV E — No of fense to K at y O’Neill ’s f riend, the one with a treehouse back in Durham, where both of the girls live.

Her pal ’s lof t is prett y swell. It has a slide, and a zip line, and a hammock.

But the treehouse where 8 -year-old K at y slept last night was a dif ferent stor y with its comf y beds, plumbed bathroom, k itchenette and flat screen T V.

“T his one is a lot fancier,” K at y said before check ing out of her family’s overnight accommodations at the Cherr y Treesor t, a cluster of cabins in the canopy outside of China Grove, a communit y near Interstate 85 bet ween Greensboro and Charlotte.

Treesor t owner Trent Cherr y — whose other f ull-time job is being the head pit crew coach for NASCA R’s Team Penske — built the first treehouse on his hobby farm in 2015 and star ted renting it out later that year.

Since then, his sylvan communit y has branched out to include eight cabins: six suppor ted by trees and stilts, plus t wo “Hobbit Houses” burrowed into a hillside.

Measuring no more than 400 square feet each, the wee lodgings are a hot proper t y on A irbnb, where renters book the proper ties — at rates ranging f rom $125 to $195 per night — months in advance.

Guests come f rom all over. Striding brisk ly along a trail that connects the cabins, Cherr y stops at a posted map of the United States dotted with multicolored push pins denoting the home states of visitors; all 50 states are nubby with pin heads. T hat’s not counting the visitors f rom 12 other countries.

“I wish I could tell you our demographics, but when you track it, it’s ever ybody. We’ve had people come here for bir thday par ties, anniversaries, honeymoons. Our oldest g uest ever was 91 years old,” he says, anticipating the next question. T he elderly g uest stayed in a hillside cabin connected to the park ing area by boardwalk bridge; no climbing needed.

Cherr y says the novelt y of napping with the squirrels is the prop er t y’s main draw — initially at least.

“T he treehouses are what get them here,” says Cherr y of his customers. “But what they really enjoy is the atmosphere.”

He means simplicit y.

“T here’s no Wi-Fi here. T hat’s on purpose,” he says. “We wanted it to be a family place where you can go outside, sit with your k ids and

turn the electronics of f. A lot of parents say, ‘T hank you. We talked, and played board games and card games, and the k ids got out and played around the creek and the farm.’”

Would-be renters can tour the treehouses during Winterfest, an open house hosted by Cherr y on the first Saturday in December. Bonus attraction: A screening of How the Grinch Stole Christmas on an inflatable screen in a tree-shrouded amphitheater. Nearby, k ids spring around in a bouncy house, Santa takes most-wanted updates, a men’s ministr y sells barbecue sandwiches and young entrepreneurs hawk wares ranging f rom mistletoe balls to marshmallow g uns.

“L ast year, we had 12 k ids, and they all sold out. T hey’d never seen that much money in their lives,” says Cherr y, who dresses farmer-chic in roper boots, Carhar tt trousers, a dust y Southern States cap and a T-shir t adver tising the treehouse communit y.

“Never Grow Up” the back of the shir t urges.

T he k id in Cherr y bought these 27 acres, just down the road f rom his home in China Grove, because he wanted a place for himself and his son, Nick, now 12, to get away.

Cherr y’s father, Jim, who owns a T-shir t manufacturing company in Indian Trail, N.C., was not impressed.

“He said, ‘W hat are you going to do with it?’ I said, ‘I dunno, but I’ll fig ure it out.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s prett y stupid.’”

A smile floods Cherr y’s face: “Now, he loves it.”

Maybe that’s because the adult in Cherr y didn’t take long to fig ure out that he could build a treehouse for himself and his son and rent it out when they weren’t using it.

Soon, he added more leaf y lodging.

It also didn’t hur t that Cherr y named t wo of the cabins — Nona’s Nest and Chico’s Hideaway — for his parents, who live in Charlotte. Nona means grandmother in Italian. Chico was his father’s nickname in the Nav y.

T he other cabins bear the names of dear ones, too.

T he Miss Molly is named for Cherr y’s daughter, now 10.

T he Big Nick — a treehouse and adjunct “g uest house” joined by a deck — honors his son.

T he Sweet Ashley is named for Cherr y’s wife, a k indergar ten teacher in Concord. T he cabin resembles a one-room schoolhouse.

One of the ear then huts is named Mimi and Papa’s, for Ashley’s parents in Winston-Salem.

T he other, Lucy Lu’s Hobbit House, is a nod to the family’s

7-pound Yorkshire Terrier.

“She r uns this place,” says Cherr y. “She’s the mayor.”

T he Lucy Lu might be the most distinctive cabin with its round door and por thole windows peering out f rom a slope near the main road.

“I came up with that all on my own,” says Cherr y. “I saw a picture online of a house built into a hill, and I said, ‘Hell, I’m gonna put a hobbit house in there.’”

T he newest treehouse is T he Tolson, named for Cherr y’s buddy, Doug Tolson, a carpenter who comes f rom California to help Cherr y and a crew of local workers build the cabins at breakneck speed.

“We bust it hard,” says Cherr y.

T he Tolson went up — literally 10 feet up, into poplars and maples and oaks — in just six weeks.

Cherr y insists that the treehouses be suppor ted in par t by trees, which usually poke through holes in the decks. Underneath, the trees attach to the houses with sliding brackets that allow the tr unks to sway with the wind without t wisting the str uctures.

Cherr y bristles at other hosts who bill their rentals as treehouses when the shelters stand on stilts alone.

“Some people build a house in the woods and call it a treehouse,” he declares. “T hat’s not a treehouse.”

Cherr y and Tolson design all of the cabins, scratching out floor plans on napk ins, graph paper, scraps of cardboard — whatever’s handy. Cherr y sends the drawings to an architect in Charlotte, who polishes the plans, impor ts them to an app called SketchUp, and ships them back.

A few t weaks later, Cherr y and his crew star t swinging hammers.

T he hideaways are approved by Rowan Count y inspectors, who also sign of f on the well and septic systems. A long with lock ing doors and windows, most cabins feature a tin roof, wood siding, a deck with f urniture, and an outdoor fire pit. Hammocks and swings dangle under the decks.

Inside, the decors are what you might call grain-positive, with wood paneling, wood floors, wood f urniture and wood flourishes such as gnarly branches deployed as wall ar t.

Cherr y and his son build all of the f urniture, bridges and railings f rom trees that fall on the proper t y.

“We slab ’em up and make tables and benches,” he says.

Some g uests compare the Treesor t experience to glamping, or glamorous camping.

“It’s the best par ts of camping with all the first-world comfor ts,” says Lynn O’Neill, the mom of 8 -year-old K at y.

O’Neill and her par tner, K athr yn Hodsk inson, booked one night in a treehouse as a treat for K at y, a fan of the Magic Tree House books.

“We haven’t been any where for a year and a half,” said Hodsk inson, recounting a stretch of online living because of COV ID.

“We needed 24 hours of no Wi-Fi,” added O’Neill.

On the way to China Grove, they stopped at the N.C. Transpor tation Museum in Spencer. T hey spent a low-tech evening around the treehouse, reading and cook ing hotdogs and SpaghettiOs over a camp stove outside. T hey used oversize Jenga blocks, which were lef t on a deck table, to build a house for K at y’s plush toy, Peanut, a mouse f rom the Magic Tree House.

Hodsk inson gave Peanut to K at y as a memento of the trip.

“We’re talk ing about coming back in the fall, when the colors change,” says Hodsk inson.

Just down the dir t road, sisters Jennifer Todd and Amber Kozlowsk i, both of whom live in the area, were preparing to check out of T he Big Nick duplex af ter a bir thday sleepover with seven girls, including Todd ’s daughter, Addison, the honoree who was turning 11 in a few days.

T he g uests included Addison’s cousin, Savannah, along with Addison’s f riends Remi, Makenna, Sophie, K ierra and McK inley.

For dinner the night before, the preteen tribe roasted hotdogs and s’mores over the fire pit.

Guided by fireflies and bistro lights str ung up around the cabins, the girls played hide-and-go -seek in the woods, t wirled in swings and watched Barbie videos on their phones until their batteries died; alas, the flat-screen T V in their cabin was hitched only to an antennae and DV D player, not to cable or dish ser vice.

T hey f ueled their all-nighter with Goldfish crackers, Cheetos, cupcakes, Cheer wine and an occasional foray outside to throw each other’s Crocs clogs of f the deck. T here also was a brief interlude with a yellow jacket wasp that crashed the par t y.

A good time was had by all, except the dearly depar ted yellow jacket. T he cabins — though hot and stuf f y at times despite electric fans and split-unit heating and cooling — passed muster with their “r ustic vibes,” according to the girls.

“My favorite par t was just being in nature,” says 8 -year-old Savannah. OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henr y magazine. She can be reached at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.