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Treehouse personalities

Treehouse building has become a lot more popular since the mid-1990s, particularly in the area of professionally built structures. There are at least 20 businesses around the world that design and build treehouses for commercial applications and for private individuals. One of the main driving forces for the growth has been research into reliable support systems carried out in the USA. This list is by no means exhaustive, but provides some background on some of the bigger names in the world of treehouses.

Peter Nelson

Author of four treehouse books and partner in TreeHouse Workshop Inc with Jake Jacob, based in Seattle, WA, USA. Nelson has been building treehouses professionally across the USA since the mid-1990s and has a background in regular house building in the Seattle area. He has been involved in research with Garnier, Greenwood and Fairoaks (below) into attachment methods that cause minimum damage to the tree while still remaining structurally safe for many years.

Books

Michael Garnier

Owner of the Out 'n' About Treesort in Takilma, OR, USA which several large and small treehouses and is run as a B&B. Garnier has been involved in long running disputes with his local planning department to get the necessary approval for his treehouses, which he always maintained were safe. In the end, he developed several tree attachment methods and employed an engineer to demonstrate that the trees could safely support all his treehouses. His most famous product has been called the Garnier Limb because it uses similar concepts to a tree limb to support large loads.

Charles Greenwood

A qualified enginner who runs Greenwood Engineering in Cave Junction, OR, USA, Greenwood has carried out extensive tests of tree fasteners, bolts and attachments, some of which can take over 10,000lbs of load. He has built treehouses using these devices across the USA. Greenwood has the considerable good fortune to be able to live and work from his treehouse all year round.

Jonathan Fairoaks

Fairoaks runs Living Tree Llc and has been involved in treehouse building for over 40 years. He is a qualified arborist, so one of this main concerns is to make sure every treehouse his company builds causes the least damage to the tree.

David Stiles

Author of many woodworking books, including one of the bestselling treehouse books, Treehouses You Can Actually Build. This book has attained a significance due to its non-technical instructions, range of designs and ability to inspire so many people to get outside and start building.

Books (treehouse related only)

John Harris

Author and director of The Treehouse Company, based in Fenwick, UK which has rapidly become the UK's largest treehouse building company with branches now open across Europe. Current capacity is over 200 treehouses per year. The company has caused a lot of interest from the press, which has increased public awareness of treehouses. He has now begun work on the ground based Bothy Lodge venture aimed at the luxury hotel market.

Books