PORTLAND, Ore. — The couple wanted to enjoy the view of the Willamette River from their West Linn home without infringing on its scenic banks. A tree house seemed the perfect solution.
Now that the tree house is finished, Bob and Mary Martin climb to their leafy loft almost daily.
Sometimes they watch birds and wildlife. Sometimes they have a glass of wine in their cedar-clad tree house shrouded in evergreen branches.
Not a bad way to end the day.
“Once you sit down in these chairs, it’s incredibly hard to get up,” said Bob Martin. “We let the twilight turn to night.”
The Martin’s tree house is perched high in a 150-year-old grand fir. An Indiana Jones-style rope bridge extends from the top of a wooded ridge out to the 190-square-foot tree house.
Climber and builder Austin Wienecke built the entire tree house while dangling in his harness.
Also a certified arborist with Village Green Arborists in Portland, Wienecke has found a niche in Oregon building tree houses that don’t wear on the tree.
“I have seen many tree houses that are beautiful but the way they interact with the tree is unhealthy,” Wienecke said.
He’s crafted whimsical Robinson Crusoe-inspired clubhouses, aerial offices and the Martin’s 30-foot-high, evening getaway.
He said he leaves plenty of branches intact, draping his one-of-a-kind creations in a swirl of foliage to create a sense of privacy.
The key, he said, is making sure the tree house can move with the tree to maintain its structural integrity.
That way the tree can dip and bend freely in the wind without compromising the man-made structure perched in its branches.
“Most trees are well suited for them,” he said of his tree houses, “and because of how I build, the tree won’t actually decline.”
The key, he said, is making sure the tree house can move with the tree. A tree’s growth and movement can put stress on the tree house, he said, and the tree house can girdle and kill a tree because the growth was not taken into account.
Wienecke said both the tree and the tree house on the Martin’s property in West Linn could easily last 40 years.
He said the old grand fir couldn’t have been more perfect for a tree house.
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