“Tree House Masters” on Animal Planet is not a show that I watch regularly, but I do tune in sometimes when I have the television on out of habit. I have to admit that I had never given much thought to elaborate tree houses even though one will occasionally make the news for one reason or the other. The guys on this show are pretty amazing. Now, while the tree houses are in fact in or around trees, for the most part they are cottages that incorporate trees. These definitely don’t fit the image of the backyard kind of thing that dads put together in a few weekends.

An episode this afternoon was what the architect/builder referred to as the lowest to the ground tree house he’d ever built and it had to do with following a long intriguing looking curving rock outcropping. The end result on each show is an incredible variety that reflect both imagination and some pretty tricky building techniques in many cases. After all, when you are elevated, you want to make sure the structure will remain intact. I don’t know if they’ve built any in hurricane-prone areas and I don’t know if building codes account for such things. The other thing that I’m certain of is that these tree houses aren’t put together on a tight budget. I can certainly also understand their allure.