Trailside Treehouse
Back in the summer of 2019, I wrote a feature in R Home Magazine about four different treehouses in Richmond. So far, here on Urban Forest Dweller, we’ve showcased three of the four. The fourth is one of RVA’s most popular Airbnb stays. It’s a two-story treehouse near the James River with an oak piercing the first-floor porch. Here’s an excerpt from the article with a link at the end to read the rest in R Home.
If you doubt the power of a treehouse to capture the imagination, consider this: In 2017, the most sought-after listing on Airbnb was a treehouse — a mini Ewok Village, really — in Atlanta, Georgia. That summer the listing, which generated more than 300,000 monthly visits, was on close to 150,000 Airbnb “wish lists” and rented for $375 a night.
Carrie and Josh Rogers’ treehouse in Westover Hills can’t quite boast that following, but it isn’t far behind. The two-story charmer was inspired by fire lookout towers in California and offers views of the James River Park from the second-story deck. Carrie, a freelance writer and mother of three, put the treehouse on Airbnb one night in September 2017. By the next morning, “I had five inquiries from people who wanted to stay there that Saturday night,” she says.
