19 August 2022 - TREEHOUSE RESTAURANT IN ENGLAND

 

TREEHOUSE 

RESTAURANT

 IN ENGLAND

G'day folks,

This giant wooden treehouse within a sprawling garden has its own eatery. 

The wondrous garden anchored by the Treehouse Restaurant was once part of the official residence of the Duke of Northumberland in the 11th century. Today, the land is known as the Alnwick Gardens, a bucolic setting featured in the early Harry Potter films. For the dendrophiles among us, the arborous building at the heart of these gardens is more likely something featured in your wildest dreams.

 

The 6,000-square-foot complex is a celebration of wood: pine, cedar, and redwood, all carefully intertwined to make a theater of natural elements suspended in the tree-line of the ancient forest. Growing trees literally spew forth from the floors while in the wintertime, a cozy fireplace lazily crackles. Need you guess what the tables and chairs are made from?

The menu boasts Northern English fare with an emphasis on seasonality and locality. While the menu reads beautifully, some diners note that execution can be spotty. Perhaps a warm drink by the fire would do a winter soul enough good.

 

For its design alone, the restaurant is well worth a trip from nearby Newcastle. You’ll surely work up an appetite gushing over all the wood.

1 February 2022 - THE ALPACA TREEHOUSE - GEORGIA, USA

 

THE ALPACA TREEHOUSE

 - GEORGIA, USA -

G'day folks,

This wondrous hideaway is suspended in a bamboo forest above a sanctuary for rescued llamas and alpacas. 

Nestled in Atlanta, Georgia, inside a dense and enchanting bamboo forest, rests a treehouse hideaway that was once only the dream of its creator. Inspired by the treehouses of her youth, Kara O’Brien was immediately struck with a vision to create something magical in this space.

 

Using her experience, O’Brien set out to design a treehouse that sprouted from the forest floor using only sustainable materials such as reclaimed wood and other salvaged goods. Originally intended as a personal space, O’Brien’s growing number of rescued llamas and the alluring draw of the treehouse soon brought many visitors. Seeing that people from all over wanted to share in the wonder of this space, O’Brien began hosting visitors to the treehouse to support and grow her rescue operation. 

Today, the treehouse has gained national recognition as dozens of visitors have swung from the bed swing beneath the treehouse or fed carrots to the llamas and alpacas. 

Few realize that right off a busy Atlanta highway is a wondrous hideaway for llamas, alpacas, and curious visitors alike. 

 

Clancy's comment: What a cool place.

I'm ...

 

26 September 2020 - EXTRAORDINARY TREEHOUSES AROUND THE WORLD

 EXTRAORDINARY 

TREEHOUSES 

AROUND THE WORLD

G'day folks,

As children, we embraced the treehouse as our own personal haven, away from the prying eyes of adults. As adults, we encourage our children to build their own treehouse (with our supervision), so they too can have their own safe space for naughtiness and adventure (also with our supervision). 

Despite our pre-existing beliefs, however, treehouses aren’t just for kids. They can be structures of wonder and beauty, bathed in green, and offering an escape surrounded by nature.

These leaf-laden abodes can be designed to house multiple people and even provide fine dining experiences. 

Now, check out some fine examples ...  

Clancy's comment: The first time I saw a treehouse was on an old black and white movie, 'Swiss Family Robinson',  when I was a kid, and I've never forgotten it. Enchanting, eh?

I'm ...

21 November 2017 - THE TREEHOUSE BARS OF PARIS

THE TREEHOUSE 

BARS OF PARIS

G'day folks,

There was once a place that drew crowds of Parisians away from their grand boulevards and sidewalk cafés to rediscover their inner child, wine & dine in chestnut tree houses and celebrate summer like Robinson Crusoe.

Perhaps you’ve heard of a “guingette”, a sort of French equivalent to a summer hoedown, traditionally located next to the river and particularly popular in the the 19th and early 20th century, serving food and ample drinks, accompanied by lively music and dancing. Monet and Renoir immortalised such vibrant scenes in their paintings but it seems the most enchanting of these summer establishments has been long forgotten by Parisians.

Les Guinguettes de Robinson was the place to be in the summer of the 1850s. Parisians descended to the small district south of the city en masse to relax high up in the branches of chestnut trees and dance in the forest. It all began in 1848 in the hamlet of St. Eloi when an inkeeper was inspired by the popular myth of Robinson Crusoe.

He created a restaurant perched in an old Chestnut tree he called the Grand Robinson. It was an instant success and competing taverns and restaurants multiplied quickly, adopting the same Crusoe theme along the Rue Malabry. In 1888, “Le Grand Robinson”, not to be confused with “the Grand Arbre”, which set up shop just opposite, had to change its name to “Le Vrai Arbre de Robinson” (the Real Tree Robinson”), in order to set itself apart from the competition.

Customers in chestnut treehouses were served lunch of roast chicken and champagne, their meals hoisted up to them in baskets via rope pulley systems. In 1855, a food critic wrote that ‘lavish tables were set and lovebirds without feathers but forks in hand exchanged happy kisses in the breeze, witnessed only by the foliage’.

For Parisians who couldn’t flock to the seaside during the summer months (but could now escape the city thanks to the expansion of the “suburban” railway lines around Paris in the late 1850s), Les Guingettes de Robinson provided a uniquely enchanting and exotic summer adventure. For over a century, this Robinson Crusoe Village was a Parisian paradise.

 

Clancy's comment: Wow. Those were the days, eh?

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