Playtime on a higher level

“At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.” So begins Chapter 2 of “Walden.” For many children, and I suspect many more adults than would let on, that spot would be a place to rise above the world, a home apart but not away from home. “A tranquility that only sitting among the leaves in a living tree can create,” is how John Harris puts it in “A Treehouse of Your Own.”

It is the calm, the escape from life’s details and the magic a treehouse provides that draw Harris to his trade, designing and building spacious abodes in arbor. Some are suspended on stilts, some have decks reached by spiral staircase, some are practically subdivisions, with structures in neighboring trees connected by rope bridges. These are not simple weekend affairs to build. He recommends “the best quality battery-operated screw gun that you can afford,” then quickly suggests such items as a climbing harness and ropes.

The book follows the planning and construction of one semicircular house with a balcony and a turreted loft built in a mature English oak. Though the step-by-step instructions quickly get technical, the dreamers among us who long to hear the different noises and see the different paths the sun’s rays take through the trees are not dissuaded. There is inspiration here, even if we go to the treehouses only in our minds or build something more modest.

Harris keeps foremost in his planning a concern for the tree’s health and particular characteristics. He prefers building with softwood to hardwood to reduce the structure’s load. His plans call for leaving space around trunks and branches to allow for unrestricted growth. He also offers helpful suggestions such as consulting the neighbors before construction, especially if the treehouse will allow for peering into another’s yard or bedroom. He favors lots of windows, for light, for catching a wonderful view, for vistas at a child’s height.

Some of his clients think themselves silly for even inquiring into his services. But what often starts as a children’s playroom can develop into a teenager’s hangout, change into an office, then revert to a playroom for the next generation, Harris notes. And though some may find the addition of a house ruins a tree’s very serenity and peace, if birds do it, why can’t we? *