North Idaho state park masters canopy camping with luxury treehouses

May 23-SAGLE, Idaho - Apart from the fine craftsmanship, the aroma of cedar boards used in the tree houses at Round Lake State Park is the first thing visitors notice. The ethereal quality of the lake and its cheery campers and wildlife is the next.

From the vantage of the black bear-themed Cubhouse deck, ospreys plunge for yellow perch, chickadees chortle their high-pitched tunes, and fishermen send lines soaring over patches of lily pads.

As the sun climbs over the balding Black Pine Mountain on the other side of the lake, birds of all kinds join in the choir.

By the time the first cup of coffee is brewed and eggs are finished frying on the induction stovetop, a group of middle schoolers has clamored out of their tents. They trek down to the docks to watch as Idaho Fish and Game release another 1,000 or so rainbow trout into the water.

While there, they search the shallow, murky water for signs of the Chinese mystery snail. If they manage to snag 18 of the invasive snails, they earn an ice cream bar from a ranger named Norm at the visitor center.

On the way back to their campsite, the group stares up at the two approximately 40-by-20-foot rectangular tree houses. Held up by steel supports wedged in cement, the park's staff unveiled the Chattertail and Cubhouse tree houses to the public last Wednesday.

Plans for the tree houses have been three years in the making, but have dwelled in Park Manager Mary McGraw's imagination for much longer.

"It's a lifelong dream," McGraw said, her voice beginning to break. "At Round Lake, we have a lot of big trees, it's well forested, and I thought this is the perfect place for tree houses. So when the opportunity came up, I was like, 'Yeah, this is something we need to do.' "

McGraw has been a ranger at the state park about a dozen miles south of Sandpoint since 1997, but spent an additional 10 years at a couple of other state parks in southern Idaho. The idea for a tree house stems from her childhood days climbing conifers and weathering falls out of trees in northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

During COVID-19, McGraw said the park received a hefty sum of money through the American Rescue Plan Act. Some parks used that money to deal with the surge of visitors that came during the pandemic. Other state parks used that money to invest in improvements to infrastructure and to address maintenance backlogs.

But McGraw saw a chance to make her dreams come true, so she wrote a proposal to the governor's office to approve the construction of two tree houses. Idaho Gov. Brad Little approved, and construction began toward the end of last July. It wrapped up around Oct. 1. Since the money came from federal funds, McGraw isn't entirely sure how much it cost to build the two tree houses, but she estimates it cost around $850,000.

Once everything received state approval , one question remained for McGraw - who would they hire to build a couple of state-of-the-art tree houses?

"If we're going to do this, we need to do it right," McGraw remembered saying. "And who better than the tree house masters?"

From 2012 to 2018, Pete Nelson and his company, Nelson Treehouse and Supply, had a reality TV show on Animal Planet called "Treehouse Masters." Even though the show was discontinued after more than 100 episodes, Nelson and his crew have not slowed down. Instead of a television network, today they share much of their work on YouTube.

Nelson said the first challenge that presented itself at Round Lake was that none of the nearby trees were large or strong enough to hold up such massive tree houses. So, they decided to build the tree houses on stilts.

"I have zero issue with that," Nelson said. "Because I think my definition of what a tree house is has broadened considerably since I was a kid building tree houses."

He said he wanted the structures his crew built to feel like tree houses, yet still be accessible and safe for families to stay in. Given that each tree house only took about a month to complete, Nelson acknowledged their building process has improved considerably since he went full-time into tree house crafting in 2005.

The walls of the tree house were prefabricated at a shop he has in Fall City, about 30 minutes east of Seattle, and then trucked to Round Lake. While Nelson's builders worked on the exterior, plumbers, electricians and HVAC technicians worked on the inside.

"If you choreograph this dance properly, you can get one done in a month," Nelson said.

After graduating from a small liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Nelson's path to building tree houses began at the age of 25 when he walked past a tree house that "grabbed his soul." Between 1988 and 2005, he mostly stuck to single-family houses, dabbling occasionally in "adult tree houses." After writing a "coffee table book" about tree houses and learning all the intricacies that go along with crafting a dwelling in the canopy, Animal Planet approached him with an offer, right around the time his company started to rebound from the 2008 financial crisis. His stipulation for joining reality TV was short and simple - no fake drama.

Across all the seasons, his favorite part of the job comes at the end of each episode when his clients finally see the result.

"I had such an extraordinary kind of meet up with her (Mary McGraw) at the tree house," Nelson said. "I just saw, 'Oh, wow, here's the spirit that drove this,' and I share that same passion to get families, individuals, and people into nature. And that's her life's work as a ranger."

McGraw said that Nelson and his crew did the designing, but she told them some things she wanted, such as a kitchenette complete with a sink, mini-fridge, and cooktop, a separate bathroom, a deck area and the capacity to sleep six people. The Treehouse Masters delivered on those promises and more.

Nelson's crew built bunk beds to maximize the space available, with queen beds on the bottom and full-size mattresses up top. Sprawling glass windows were installed across the length of the tree houses so folks could peer out at the lake below. A compact dining setup with a table and wraparound benches were set near the door, while the separate bathroom (that has everything one could need except a shower) lies just a few feet from the entrance. And that's just the interior of the Cubhouse. The Chattertail tree house, which is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, has the same fundamental components, just with a slightly different layout.

"The tree houses there are fairly straightforward rectangles, and there's four corners," Nelson said. "Well, there's that bathroom that's under a roof. I mean, there's always more complexities. ... I honestly believe that these things that are more simple are more beautiful aesthetically."

Almost all of the wood used to build the tree houses, apart from the framing and the heavy beams, is salvaged lumber. The floor of the Chattertail and Cubhouse came from posts that used to hold up the Trans Bay Bridge in the San Francisco Bay. Nelson said he detests the idea of harvesting any building material from old-growth forests, which is why they try to salvage everything they can. And it's cheaper.

Norm Sommerfeld has been administrative assistant and ranger at Round Lake for the last year. But before that, he worked as a contractor for 35 years. He took a job at Round Lake to help provide for his 12 - and 16-year-old grandsons. Across all the projects he's had to work on, he said he's never seen a crew build something so quickly, efficiently or in the manner in which Nelson's crew did at Round Lake.

Sommerfeld said the park just got the occupancy permit approved two weeks ago, which is why it's taken so long to debut the tree houses to the public.

He spent several days cutting chunks of wood and assembling the cedar lawn chairs that sit on the covered decks of the Chattertail and the Cubhouse.

He said most of July and June has already been fully booked out. A night at one of the tree houses during the "busy months," or from Memorial Day weekend until right after Labor Day, costs $275 for an Idaho resident and $305 for someone from out of state. After Labor Day, the price drops to $155 for out-of-state and $125 for in-state. The tree houses, like the park, are set to be open year round and reservations can be booked online.

One of the hidden details of the tree house is the presence of the rope net - affectionately dubbed a "floor hammock" - that rests level with the rest of the deck on the far right side of the Cubhouse.

From the comfort of the floor hammock, one can read a book and listen to the birds sing .

"You've got to get people out into these places, so that they fall in love, and then preserve them," Nelson said, borrowing from a book by Richard Louv. "Because if you don't fight for these places, these sacred places - the woods, beautiful nature - it won't be long before this capitalist society of ours turns it into condos."

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