Hello everyone, Winnie Griggs here.
When I was growing up, our “townie” classmates thought my family lived way out in the back of beyond. My siblings and I didn’t really mind, though—we turned the vacant, overgrown fields near our home into our own personal playgrounds. We built many a hideaway in those patches of untamed ground, creating little places we could claim for ourselves. They were, at various times, jungle huts, military forts, outlaw hideouts, and lookouts for pirate ships on the nearby bayou. Looking back, I think finding and making those spaces was probably as much fun as using them.
My little brother eventually did build a treehouse in our backyard. Whenever there was construction going on in the neighborhood, he and his friends would raid the scrap piles for wood and discarded nails. They spent many an hour straightening bent nalis and using them to nail the scraps together to have boards big enough to work with. And they used every nail they found, whether they needed it or not, That’s no doubt the reason it survived Hurricane Camille when it blew through. It was a simple affair, just some boards nailed to the tree for a ladder and a small, flat platform above. Nothing fancy, but then a child’s imagination doesn’t require much in the way of amenities.
There’s something appealing about having a spot that belongs to you, especially when you’re young and so much of your world is arranged by grown-ups. And if getting there involves climbing a tree, that adds a little adventure of its own.
Children have been finding ways to make those treetop retreats for quite a while.
In his 1914 book Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties, American author Daniel Carter Beard included a chapter on building “Tree-Top Houses.” He also shared accounts of treehouses already in use, including one built by boys in Lynn, Massachusetts. A truant officer suspected they were using it as a place to hide while playing hooky. Beard questioned that accusation and came to the boys’ defense, pointing to the ingenuity and hard work involved in building it.
I have to smile at that. A well-built hideaway apparently deserves a little credit, even when the grown-ups have questions about what goes on there! Beard also described a Brooklyn treehouse roomy enough for fifteen people and a California treehouse attached to a redwood, with a bridge spanning a rocky canyon to reach it. Those were certainly a step up from my brother’s backyard platform.
Treehouses have a place in classic adventure stories, too. The Swiss Family Robinson, first published in 1812, features a family who build a home among the branches after being shipwrecked. Their tree dwelling, known as Falconhurst in a familiar English version, offers shelter and a place to begin making a life together. It’s easy to see how such a story could set a young reader dreaming about a treetop home of their own.
And then there’s Tarzan. In Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes, he builds a simple shelter of leaves and branches in a tree, using it to keep his treasures protected from the rain. Even a jungle adventurer needs somewhere to put his belongings!
These days, I enjoy watching the television show Treehouse Masters, and I’m often fascinated by the designs and what they manage to include in some of those grand treehouses. My little brother would hardly recognize them as relatives of his backyard platform! Some of them have more amenities than the house I’m living in today!
While looking into the subject, I also came across a few remarkable examples.
- A contender for the oldest surviving treehouse stands at Pitchford Hall in Shropshire, England. First mentioned in records in 1692, it has an oak floor, decorative ceiling, and windows. The future Queen Victoria even watched a visiting pack of foxhounds from it when she visited as a young princess. That’s quite a history for a house in a tree!
- An American giant, the Minister’s Tree House in Crossville, Tennessee, was widely described as the world’s largest. It stood about 100 feet tall and spread across seven trees. Sadly, it was destroyed by fire in October 2019, but its remarkable size deserves a mention.
- The lowest treehouse is a record I wouldn’t have thought to look for. Guinness lists one in Okinawa, Japan, measuring 11 feet 9 inches below the base of its host tree. Apparently, a treehouse doesn’t always have to take you upward!
The treehouse in my upcoming Christmas story, The Wrong Christmas Match, is a much humbler affair. But it’s important to the people who use it.
Set in Tucker’s Gap, Texas, in 1890, the story features nine-year-old twins Peter and Paul, who have decided their new schoolteacher needs a husband. Their treehouse provides a handy headquarters for working out their matchmaking plans. Whether the adults involved will appreciate those plans is another matter entirely.
But the treehouse also holds memories for their uncle, Gabe Waggoner. He built it with his own father when he was a boy. After the twins lost their father, Gabe had them help him refurbish it for their use, giving them something else to focus on as they worked together.
I liked the idea of Gabe sharing that piece of his childhood with his nephews. He couldn’t take away their loss, but he could spend time with them and help them make a place of their own. Something he’d built with his father could now become part of the boys’ childhood, too.
Of course, Gabe might have had a few second thoughts if he’d known what those two would get up to once their headquarters was ready. A carpenter can repair a treehouse, but keeping a pair of determined young matchmakers out of trouble is a different sort of challenge!
What about you? Did you have a treehouse growing up, or another special hideaway you shared with siblings or friends? Or did a book like The Swiss Family Robinson leave you wishing for one? I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment to be entered in a drawing for a signed book.
And before I go, a little reminder: The Wrong Christmas Match is included in A Vintage Christmas to Remember anthology, which releases tomorrow. The special preorder price goes up once it releases, so if you’re planning to get a copy, today is a good time to order it!
