B4 • Friday, September 10, 2021
thegardenisland.com
THE GARDEN ISLAND
NATURE MEETS NOSTALGIA
her surprise, lots of people want to use it. “For me, it’s this magical place,” she said. “I have to Anthropologists believe block off a bunch of weekour ancient human ancestors spent their time in ends just so we can spend trees, so it should be no sur- time there too.” Treehouses have proliferprise we love treehouses today. ated during the pandemic. Treehouses of all kinds There are stylish backyard are experiencing a renaisones built by professionals, and makeshift ones thrown sance. When an acre-size slice of up just to escape the four walls of home. There are listland in Gold Hill, Colorado, came on the market earlier ings on sites like Airbnb for this year, local resident Jestreehouses to camp in. Unlike the rickety treesica Brookhart, 41, snapped it up for $80,000. houses of yore, many of The draw for her: The these new ones have been house was a treehouse. upgraded. Most are still acIt was a place she could cessed with a ladder, howhang out with her husband ever, requiring you to climb. and two young boys. As pandemic lockdowns “I had never been inside droned on, Nanci and Ethan it, but had admired it from a Butler of Newton, Massachudistance,” she said, admitsetts, decided to build a ting it was an emotional pur- backyard treehouse for their two kids. Ethan, an engineer, chase. found treehouse floor plans The man who owned the land had built the treehouse online and modified them to accommodate their family. with materials from a recyBuilding the house was a cling center in neighboring family affair, and in about Boulder. The structure can three months, the Butlers fit two adults and two chilhad a beautiful hideaway dren. There’s no bathroom with built-in bunk beds and or running water, and a squat potty is outside down a front deck. They enjoyed some nights camping out in on the ground. There’s a it. camping stove for cooking, Then, on a serene day and water has to be brought about three weeks after it up. From the windows, you can see Longs Peak and the was finished, a big oak in the yard broke in two. Part of it Continental Divide. fell directly onto the tree“Since I was a little girl, I was obsessed with little house, crushing it. Carpenmini-houses, or sheds and ter ants had brought the tree treehouses,” Brookhart said. down. She sometimes rents the “It was traumatic, I was treehouse out online, and to stunned,” Nanci, 45, said. Tracee M. Herbaugh ASSOCIATED PRESS
AARON SMITH VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Pagosa Springs treehouse Aaron Smith of Treecraft Design-Built. Smith said interest in treehouses has increased in the last few years. “But we were also so saturated with despair at that point. Nobody cried.” More people have been drawn outdoors and into nature during COVID, and treehouses are part of that pattern, said Jeff Galak, associate professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon Universi-
ty’s Tepper School of Business. “They are an attempt to do something fun and interesting and away from other people,” Galak said. Part of treehouses’ popularity, he said, is parents’ desire to create more backyard amenities so
Treehouses return in style
kids will go outside. Nostalgia is another part of it. “Nostalgia is a huge driver for consumers in general,” he said. “People are being creative with how they engage with that type of nostalgia.” Business is booming for Aaron Smith, who owns the Fort Collins, Colorado-based treehouse architecture firm Treecraft Design-Build. He started it in 2015, and now employs a second designer and eight carpenters. “In COVID times, I saw a spike in requests for backyard treehouses just because everyone was at home and the kids needed to get out of the house too,” Smith said. His treehouses have ranged from a basic backyard structure costing around $10,000 to a livable treehouse with indoor plumbing for half a million. He has clients all over the country. On social media, a variety of treehouse hashtags on TikTok pulls up millions of results. On Pinterest, searches for “treehouse homes” are up sevenfold from the year prior. And treehouse rentals have their own section on Airbnb. For many people, basic is OK for treehouses. Jim Brook, a 71-year-old grandfather in Breckenridge, Colorado, built his three grandsons a small platform treehouse nestled among some aspen trees a few
years ago. “I love to introduce them to nature and encourage them to play outdoors, so a simple structure with a metal pole ‘fireman’ exit seemed like it would be fun,” Brook said. “At times we have also set a small tarp overhead and a carpet remnant on the plywood platform.” Others like their treehouses with a bit of luxury. The Mohicans Treehouse Resort in Glenmont, Ohio, is packed with amenities for those who want to enjoy the outdoors with the comforts of modern living. The nine treehouses (and two under construction) at Mohican are indeed built with supporting trees, but they have the feel of a fancy hotel: black walnut or cherry wood floors, 100-year-old barn siding, nice linens and throw pillows, indoor plumbing, air conditioning and heat. One of the treehouses on the property, Little Red, was featured on the Animal Planet series “Treehouse Masters.” Another one, White Oak, has a groundlevel entrance, making it wheelchair-accessible. “The goal was to have them available all year round, with all amenities,” said Laura Mooney, who owns the resort with her husband, Kevin. “We didn’t want guests to have to go to a shower house. They could stay in the treehouse and everything is there.”
Save money with a local mortgage. US average mortgage rates rise slightly; 30year at 2.88% ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Average longterm mortgage rates were marginally higher this week as the recovering economy appeared stalled against the backdrop of a wave of new delta variant coronavirus cases. They remained under 3%. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate for a 30-year mortgage edged up to 2.88% from 2.87% last week. That’s very close to where the benchmark rate stood at this time last year, 2.86%. It peaked this year at 3.18% in April. Home loan rates fell in the early summer and then remained steady despite increases in inflation. The rate for a 15-year loan, a popular option for homeowners refinancing their mortgages, ticked up to 2.19% from 2.18% last week. Concern continues to swirl that the highly contagious delta variant could cause the economic recovery from the pandemic to sputter by reducing employment and dampening consumer spending. The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that U.S. economic activity “downshifted” in July and August, in part because of a pullback in dining out, travel and tourism stemming from concern over the delta variant. In a positive sign that the economy is so far outrunning the variant, the government reported Thursday that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to 310,000, a pandemic low and a sign that the delta variant has yet to bring widespread layoffs.
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