About 12 years ago, Will Beilharz decided to climb 270 feet up a tree in Sonoma County, California, and sleep there. He and his friends set up their hammocks and spent two nights in the towering redwood, reading books between the branches and subsisting on granola bars. The excursion changed his life. “It was transformational,” he says. “I realized just how incredible it is to be connected to nature in this way and to be relying on a tree for your survival, which ancestrally we did for a very long time before we ever came to the ground.”
Will wanted to share this eye-opening experience with others but knew most people wouldn’t have the gear (or the guts) to do what he did, so he founded a treehouse design and construction company called Artistree Home. In the decade since he started the business, Will and his team have crafted tiny abodes among the trees, as well as on beaches and in deserts, everywhere from Austin to Puna in Hawaii and Zihuatanejo in Mexico.
Though Will most often creates treehouses for clients, he recently opted to build one for himself in the place where he first fell in love with this earthy lifestyle. He bought a piece of land on the edge of a forest in Occidental, California, and enlisted an arborist to help evaluate the massive redwoods on the property. Once they found a suitable one to provide support, Will installed the Artistree Home model of his choice around it.
The shippable, customizable, modular treehouse that Will picked is named The Spyglass for its semicylindrical shape, as well as for its purpose. “It’s a really cool metaphor for the fact that this unit is giving you a view into nature that you wouldn’t normally have,” he explains. “It’s also giving a view into a future where [humans] and trees are interwoven again, rather than this isolation between the cityscape and the natural world. We’re so separated and segregated, but [we] both really actually need each other.”
The exterior is clad in a thermally modified, mold-resistant wood called Thermory as well as chocolate brown metal shingles that blend into the surrounding wilderness. “It looks kind of like bark or a leaf pattern,” Will says. “It just has a very organic feel to it. It’s metal because we live in an area with fire and part of the goal with this treehouse is to integrate into the fire ecology landscape rather than ignore it.”
To achieve a bright and inviting interior, Will chose pale yet warm alder wood, a species native to the region, as the dominant material. It covers the curved ceiling and walls, composes the built-in bedframe and the storage in the compact kitchen, and makes an appearance in the vanity of the minimalist tiled bathroom (which also boasts an infrared sauna). Meanwhile, LED lighting and an energy-recovery ventilator keep the home sustainable.
When it came to furnishing the space, Will prioritized size, followed by midcentury-modern style. “We really had to go with the smallest option of furniture everywhere,” he says. “It’s a very small sofa. It’s very well-appointed and comfortable, but it’s not your average love seat. I also chose a lot of rounded features to play with the rounded shape of the building.”
The most luxurious part of the treehouse is the back deck, which is attached to the redwood tree, suspended 35 feet off the ground and outfitted with a cedar soaking tub. Will and his guests (yes, guests, since he rents out this dreamy treehouse sometimes) can bathe in the hot, bubbly water and the lush forest simultaneously. They can even see the ocean in the distance. There is no better way to be connected to nature.
