The drive to Treehouse Point, half an hour east of Seattle, takes you through a forest fit for hobbits, filled with fir, spruce, cedar, maple, and hemlock. Along the Raging River (yes, that's its name), you reach a door, enter the secret code, and enter a realm where it's perfectly normal to sleep in a tree, surrounded by clever woodwork and birdsong.
It is a tree house-type hotel, with seven elevated positions spread among the vegetation.
Like a Douglas fir in fertile soil, Treehouse Point has been growing for 19 years, fueled in part by creator Pete Nelson's fame as a treehouse designer and former host of “Treehouse Masters” on Animal Planet.
The property's treehouses, each unique and named, are priced from $325 to $625 per night, with breakfast included. Five have toilets and sinks with a water cistern on board. The Upper Pond unit has a composting toilet and the Bonbibi unit relies on access to bathhouse toilets and showers.
Now that I spent a rainy winter night in one of the treehouses, I can tell you that this setting was spectacular, the room was comfortable like a lumberjack's lunchbox. (And then I learned why it made me feel like I was in the cabin of a ship.)
Inside on the left is Treehouse Point's Bonbibi unit. To the right is a tiled wall of the Ananda unit. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)
The story of these treehouses begins in the mid-1960s in Ridgewood, New Jersey, where 7-year-old Pete Nelson's father set up a treehouse in the backyard. Years later, after meeting his future wife, Judy, at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Nelson set about building a treehouse himself. Then another.
Treehouses, Pete Nelson later wrote, “speak an ancient language and the message is universal: Climb and you are in harmony with nature.”
In 1994, he had published “Tree Houses: The Art and Craft of Living on an Extremity,” a coffee table book. “How is Peter Nelson's 'Treehouses' not appreciated?” wrote LA Times critic Tobi Tobias. “Its theme of him is immediately appealing, with its implications of escape and fantasy.” Several similar volumes have followed.
Pete and Judy Nelson purchased the Treehouse Point property in Fall City in 2005, starting with four largely raw riverside acres. The first treehouse, the Temple of the Blue Moon, was completed in 2006. Since then, despite early tangles with King County building inspectors and the 2008 economic crisis, the Nelsons have built seven houses in the trees, a central cabin (with a guest bedroom), an event space (with shower and toilet) and a bathhouse, alongside a pond and a wedding lawn.
About 19 years ago, treehouse builder Pete Nelson began installing structures on his property outside Seattle.
(Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)
The most recent unit, Ananda, was built in 2021 to be wheelchair accessible. There's also a path down to the river's edge, where you can try your hand at rock-skipping or simply marvel at the lichen-covered tree trunks leaning over the fast-moving water.
The most popular units? Temple of the Blue Moon, followed by Ananda.
The most affordable treehouse? That would be my room, Bonbibi, named after a Bangladeshi forest goddess.
As I approached its spiral staircase on a short path through the forest, I met a group of tourists, dazzled and radiant after a walk to the river.
“Are you staying the night?” one of the visitors asked me, with envy in every syllable.
At the top of the Bonbibi stairs, I found a 9-by-12-foot room attached to the wide trunk of a Western red cedar.
Below, there is an outdoor seating area with a couple of chairs. Once you walk in, there's a queen-sized bed, plenty of electricity, a coffee maker, several large windows with white curtains, and pretty much everything you'd expect in a luxury hotel.
Treehouse Point's Bonbibi unit includes a ladder that goes around the trunk of the host tree. Shingles from another unit fit perfectly near live logs and branches. The tree houses are adjacent to the Raging River. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)
Those amenities include a relatively quiet heating and air conditioning unit. Still, for much of the night I turned it off because the temperature was stable and the sounds of the river, rain and forest, without any hum, were irresistible.
It's probably no coincidence that TreeHouse Point has grown alongside the Nelsons' fame.
With partners, the Nelsons now participate in three other treehouse getaways: Treehouse Utopia in the Texas Hill Country; the Woods Maine in Norway, Maine; and Treehouse Grove at Norton Creek Resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Additionally, through Nelson Treehouse & Suppy, Pete Nelson spends much of his time designing and building treehouses across the country.
Meanwhile, it turns out that many brides and grooms love the idea of spending their wedding nights in a tree. TreeHouse Point has become a busy wedding venue, hosting 80 or more ceremonies a year, “up to four a week,” said general manager Bree Monahan. (None of the Nelsons, who travel frequently, were available during my visit.)
For guests not attending the wedding, there is usually a two-night minimum. (Sunday nights are a good bet if you want to avoid it.) Treehouse Point does not allow guests under 16 years of age or pets. To preserve guest privacy, management does not allow check-ins before 4 pm or check-outs after 11 am, or walk-ins from curious passers-by.
However, there are yoga classes most Tuesdays and Thursdays, and visitors can book midday tours, usually one hour, for $35. There probably won't be any new treehouses, Monahan said, because the operation has reached its maximum number of permitted accommodations.
It's a fascinating place to wander, almost ridiculously photogenic. I couldn't enter any unit but my own, but for me, the architectural star of the show is Trillium, a two-level marvel with 80 crystals, all clinging to the broad trunk of a Western red cedar. It was completed in 2009.
Treehouse Point's Trillium unit is a two-story retreat in a cedar tree.
(Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)
Later, I learned that my room, Bonbibi, began as a treehouse building workshop project in 2010: an elevated gazebo, built in five days, including a ship's ladder and whose interior was finished with marine varnish. When the Nelsons expanded it into overnight accommodation in 2012, they replaced the ship's staircase with spiral staircases. But the upstairs still feels, as Nelson wrote, “like a state room on a 1930s lake cruise.”
However, this is a state room with a shared bathroom.
When nature called early in the morning, I was forced to walk down 20 steps of that spiral staircase in the rain and then climb another 20 steps to the shared bathrooms and showers of the neighboring bathhouse. At times like this, it's good to have a fully charged phone or flashlight. (It's also good not to be impressed by Bigfoot stories.) If I had spent $50 more on a different unit, I would have had an immediate access bathroom.
But I slept well. And waking up, that moment of remembering where she was, made me smile.
Breakfast was a buffet in the lodge, which is a pleasantly wooded house with a large fireplace, Wi-Fi (not available in the treehouses), and bookshelves full of volumes about trees and treehouses. And there was plenty of time before departure to read a little and take another walk to the riverbank.
Treehouse Point's Trillium unit features 80 glass panels. The humid climate (and fog from the neighboring river) create a thick forest with branches covered in green. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)
If you go
Treehouse Point is at 6922 Preston-Fall City Road SE, Issaquah, near Fall City, Wash.
Once you enter the Treehouse Point property, you won't want to leave. But there is no restaurant on site. So you'll have to come back for dinner or bring a picnic. In the coming weeks, Monahan said, he hopes to introduce more food options (perhaps charcuterie boards) to accompany the drinks, beers and wines offered at the lodge's specialty store.
If you're dining out, the fanciest nearby option is the Salish Lodge, a historic hotel and restaurant above Snoqualmie Falls, about 15 minutes away. The more rustic alternative is the Last Frontier Saloon in Fall City, about five minutes from Treehouse Point.
After lunch at the hostel (tasty soup) and a mid-afternoon beer in the lounge (spicy jokes), I met up with friends for a satisfying dinner at Well & Table, a nice local restaurant (mains $18-$39 ) which is 15 minutes away in Issaquah.
Snoqualmie Falls neighbors the Salish Lodge, now owned by the Snoqualmie Tribe.
(Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)
