A tree house built among oak trees in the Alpes de Haute-Provence region of France, four metres off the ground.

It appears the tree house is  becoming an increasingly popular  holiday home as land becomes scarcer across southern Europe. Once banished to the back garden as a plaything for children, they are now being dragged  into the mainstream by an innovative French firm.

To date the company, La Cabane Perchee, has built 220 tree houses in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, each custom built to suit the tree that holds it and offering a realistic alternative to the traditional villa, townhouse and apartment holiday home.

An aboreal treat atop a pine tree in the countryside near Nice in France. It stands some 11 metres above the ground

Each wooden structure, which can be up to 15m off the ground, is built to ensure that the tree has room to grow and constructed without using nails. And if trees are scrace in your favoured location, then stilts are used instead.

And tree mansion would be a better word to describe some of the company’s creations and the larger ones are fully insulated, offer electric heating and bathrooms with toilets and showers. Prices start at €25,000 and one of the firm’s typical tree houses offers 15-18 sq m of floor space with an extra 10 sq m of terracing outside.

Photos:  Sipa Press / Rex Features

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 9:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.