A Room With a View

Humans have been hanging out in trees at least since the age of Tarzan. But no Ape Man ever enjoyed accommodations like these. In the 1990s, airborne real estate--a.k.a. the treehouse--comes equipped with such amenities as drawbridges, television sets and pirate-ship architecture.

In Northridge, Brian Fessenden, 13, occupies a structure wired for lights, TV and music. It’s his fifth treehouse in eight years: Two have been in the front yard (which the city made him dismantle) and three in the back. “I love to go up there and read mystery stories,” he says.

Other branch dwellers play in less technologically advanced, more back-to-nature arenas. Ariana Zeno’s environmentally correct treehouse, in Topanga, sits in an ancient oak tree, suspended by cables only (no nails), with no roof (“so you can see the stars”) and flower boxes hanging from the ladder.

Some treehouses are monuments to professional-quality construction, others to the power of imagination. A Point Dume structure with a suspended bridge was created by Rodrigo Jacomet, an “environmental designer” who takes credit for more than 200 treetop domiciles in the area. The Malibu pirate-ship treehouse, on the other hand, is a childhood fantasy brought to life by a trio of dads during the Los Angeles riots.

“Everyone had so much pent-up nervous energy they decided to do something constructive for the neighborhood children,” says Kathleen Lowry, one of the neighborhood moms. With scrap lumber and a short trip to Home Depot, the pirate-ship treehouse began. Three weekends later, it was complete with ladders, swings, a steering wheel and a pirate flag.

It’s great for the children, says Lowry, but the parents like it, too:

“Now we always know where the kids are playing.”