We are a licensed architectural firm and specialize in designing safe, enduring, and captivating treehouses. Our designers work closely with you to manifest your vision and bring years of experience in innovative and beautiful small-space design to the process. Our designs are highly site-specific, integrated with the unique layout of your trees and the surrounding environment. We collaborate with engineers and building officials to ensure that your luxury treehouse meets the highest standards of safety.
Our designs services are typically paired with our build services, but can also be contracted independently.
We oversee your build from prefabrication in our Washington State-based shop, to shipment of prefabricated components, to onsite completion. Our carpenters excel at their craft, building artful and durable treehouses. We pride ourselves on leading a joyful, safe, and seamless build experience, believing that the process of building your treehouse is as fundamental to its magic as being in the completed structure.
We build with only the highest-quality hardware and tried-and-tested techniques that foster the longevity of both trees and treehouse. As necessary, we hire subcontractors for additional services including insulation, roofing, plumbing, and electrical.
Costs vary widely depending on the location and scope of your treehouse.
Our design services account for 10 to 15 percent of the total price. The minimum cost of our design services for a fully permitted and engineered treehouse is about $30,000. The total price of your fully designed and built Nelson treehouse is equal to our design-services fee plus the cost of our fixed-bid construction contract.
Our typical treehouses are between 200 and 800 square feet and can include most of the amenities of a typical “ground” house.
The following factors (among others) may affect the cost of your treehouse:
• Number of trees you wish to connect to
• Desired amenities (e.g., kitchen, bathroom, water, electricity)
• Site access
• Distance of the treehouse from the ground
• Materials, seasonality of the structure (e.g., all-season, three-season), and desired degree of finish
• Travel and logistics (e.g., crew accommodations, plane tickets, car rentals, freight).
• Time of year (e.g., peak travel season costs, weather)
Here’s a little more on what goes into our pricing structure:
• We’ve refined an efficient method of prefabricating, shipping, and building treehouses onsite. Nonetheless, transporting and housing our crew during your build are significant logistical costs. Projects within an hour’s drive of our Fall City headquarters may not be subject to the costs of crew accommodations associated with long-distance builds.
• Utilities (e.g. septic system, water, electrical) will need to be brought to the base of the treehouse before construction can begin. We can assist with this infrastructure in some cases. Please note: these costs are above and beyond the costs of our design and build services. Once utilities infrastructure is established, we will oversee the installation of these amenities within the structure as a part of the construction contract.
• Your jurisdiction may require a building permit for a treehouse—rules vary from place to place. Permitting costs for treehouses tend to be similar to those of typical residential construction. Please review our FAQ on permitting for more information. This is one of our areas of expertise, so we’ll be happy to help!
• Customers typically engage Nelson Treehouse to design and build their projects but contracting with a different builder can be a great way to economize, especially for projects outside the Seattle area.
• A final note: Although we have the honor of building treehouses around the world, we remain a small family-owned business rooted in the rural town of Fall City, Washington. We build beautiful treehouses for incredible people—but not overnight and not without being steeped in the context of our dusty, dog-friendly, dynamic workspace. To put it another way: we may be on TV, but turkeys (real live turkeys) still wander into our office on a daily basis.
We invite you to submit an inquiry so we can learn about your vision and determine if Nelson Treehouse would be the best fit for your project.
Please note: Our site contains excellent information about the process, timing, and costs of treehouse construction. We urge you to familiarize yourself with these basics before making an inquiry.
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