MigrateLab
Get yours

Tom and Nell Birkett, Harrow Hollow, since 1996

Built for the kids. Built again for their kids.

A father and daughter, both carpenters, building family treehouses in the Wickham hills for thirty summers. Forty-one of our clients first climbed one of our ladders as children. Now they call about their own kids.

Play treehouses from $32,000. Family treehouses from $58,000. Tree visits are free within 40 miles.

A two-storey wooden treehouse with red window frames and a railed deck, built into a big tree on a sunny afternoon

The Pryor treehouse, 2025

Two floors in a 90-year-old beech. Anna Pryor played in our 1999 build two doors down.

  • 30summers building treehouses in the Wickham hills
  • 212treehouses, every one drawn by hand before a beam is cut
  • 41built for kids who played in one of ours first
  • 211of those trees still standing. An ice storm took the other in 2011.

Grows with them

We draw it for the four-year-old, and for the adult they turn into.

A treehouse lasts longer than a childhood, so we design all four stages on the first visit. Slide through the years to see what one Birkett treehouse becomes, and what we add each time.

Age 4, the year you build, 2026

A platform and a rope

Everything a four-year-old wants is up, down and across. So we start low, at six feet, and keep it open.

What we build first

  • A 10 by 12 foot platform, six feet off the ground
  • Rope ladder and a knotted climbing rope
  • Rails at 36 inches, with gaps a small head cannot fit through
  • A rope swing on its own branch, well clear of the trunk

Beams and tree bolts are sized now for the room it will carry at 15, so nothing underneath gets torn out later.

Part of a play treehouse, from $32,000

Start with a platform, or start with the room.

Every price includes the tree visit, drawings for all four stages, the arborist’s report, permits where your county asks for them, and ten years of autumn checks.

Play treehouse

from $32,000

About 3 weeks on site

The age four stage: a platform, rails, a rope ladder and a swing, built on beams sized for the room that comes later.

  • Platform up to 120 square feet, six to eight feet up
  • Rope ladder, climbing rope and swing
  • Framing and bolts ready for a room
  • Add the room whenever your kids ask for it
Ask about a play treehouse

Family treehouse

from $58,000

About 6 weeks on site

Platform, room and roof in one build, for families who want the age nine stage from day one or have kids of several ages.

  • Enclosed room with opening windows and a Dutch door
  • Wraparound deck with rails and a swing branch
  • Rope ladder or ship’s ladder, your choice
  • Wiring run in the walls, ready for power later
Ask about a family treehouse
Tom Birkett at his bench in the workshop, working out a joint
Tom at the bench. He still cuts every beam himself.
Tom at the table saw in the Birkett workshop, cutting deck boards
The Copper Lane workshop, where every beam is cut before it goes up a tree.

Nell was six when she held the ladder on the first one.

In 1996 Tom Birkett was a timber framer building barns. That summer he put a platform in the ash behind the house on Copper Lane, for his daughter. The neighbours asked for one. Then their friends did. By 2004 he had stopped building barns.

Nell started as his apprentice at seventeen and took over the drawings in 2014. She does the tree visits and designs every stage. Tom cuts the beams and argues with her about windows. They build every treehouse together, with a crew of four.

They only take on twelve treehouses a year, so the waiting list for a spring build usually closes in October.

“The best letter we ever got was from a kid we built for in 1999, asking if we still did this. We did. Dad cried a bit.”

Nell Birkett

Three families, three trees, and one yard we keep coming back to.

A girl leaning out of the window of her play treehouse

The Okafor play house

Harrow Hollow

Tree
Red maple, 22 inch trunk
Build
Built 2024, 4 weeks on site

Two sisters, five and seven. We built the platform and room together, because the older one had opinions about windows.

Two treehouse forts in a pine wood, joined by a netted rope bridge

The Lindqvist forts

Alder Ridge

Tree
Two white pines, 34 feet apart
Build
Built 2022, 7 weeks on site

Three cousins who could not agree on one treehouse, so they got two, and a netted bridge Nell tested by crossing it forty times.

A windowed treehouse room on a single trunk, looking out over the treetops

The Hadley reading room

Copper Lane

Tree
White oak, 31 inch trunk
Build
Platform 1998, room 2004, reading room 2019

Our third ever build, two doors from the workshop. Sam Hadley climbed the platform at six. At 27 he asked us to make it a reading room. Last spring we hung a swing from the same oak for his daughter.

From the first look up the trunk to the first climb.

  1. Step 1: We visit the treeWeek 1

    Tom and Nell come out, look up, measure the trunk and walk the ground. Free within 40 miles of Harrow Hollow.

  2. Step 2: Drawings and an arborist’s reportWeeks 2 to 5

    Nell draws the treehouse at every stage, not just the first one. An independent arborist signs off the tree before we do.

  3. Step 3: Framing in the workshop, building in the tree3 to 7 weeks on site

    Beams are cut on Copper Lane and carried in, so your lawn is a building site for weeks, not months.

  4. Step 4: First climb, then every autumnFor 10 years

    The kids go up first, before we leave. We come back each autumn to check the bolts and let out the brackets as the tree grows.

A plain timber platform built around one tree, looking out over the valley
Every build starts as a platform around one trunk. Ours sit on floating brackets, so the tree can keep growing under them.

Sample letters

Pinned above the workbench, next to the first drawing from 1996.

Two girls waving from the window of a wooden treehouse
“I was six when Tom bolted a platform into our oak. At 27 I asked for it back as a reading room, and last spring Nell hung a swing on it for my daughter. The 1998 bolts were still perfect.”
Sam H., Copper Lane. Sample review.
“Nell asked our kids what they wanted, then actually listened. The ten-year-old got his lookout window. The four-year-old got a bell on a rope. Both use them daily.”
Priya O., Harrow Hollow. Sample review.
“We budgeted for the play treehouse and added the room three years later. Tom knew it was coming. The joists were already there waiting for it.”
Mark and Jen L., Alder Ridge. Sample review.

Tell us about your tree, and Nell will come and climb it.

Nell reads every note and calls within two working days to set a date. The visit takes about an hour, costs nothing within 40 miles, and you will know that afternoon whether your tree can carry a treehouse.

Or call the workshop, (555) 014-1996

Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 4pm. If nobody answers, we are up a tree. Leave a message.