This is the story of what happens when big people decide to be kids again and they have tools and lumber. A beautifully written tale about building an elaborate two story treehouse in the Maine woods, Treehouse Chronicles is reflective and insightful, and carries the reader along as a dream is made real. We meet the author's family, and friends, and a squirrel with an attitude, and you will be captivated by this poignant and humorous story of process, a house is hung in the sky. Packed with over 180 spectacular photographs, evocative watercolors, and line drawings, this book is simply delightful.
Once in a while, a great book will come along that takes your breath away. Treehouse Chronicles is one of those books.
- Foreword By Anne LaBastille, ecologist, author and adjunct professor of natural resources, Cornell University.
- Introduction by Tedd Benson, renowned timber frame builder, designer, and author.
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From the first page, readers will be captivated by the author’s charm and wit. Combined with Lewis’ exceptional writing and photographs and Walsh’s illustrations and watercolors, this beautifully done "coffee table book" is a rare find.
With carefully chosen words and a self-deprecating sense of humor, Lewis tells the tale of a grown man eager to build a house in the sky. Beginning with his days in Colorado, Lewis shares with readers his journey back to Maine where he and his family settle into an old farmhouse, destined to enjoy the land and the history it offers.
Upon their return to Maine, Lewis, and his family and friends participate in fulfilling Lewis’ dream of building a magnificent treehouse. Through journal entries, reflection, sketches, and illustrations, Lewis takes readers through the four-year process from beginning to end. As he shares his ideas, dreams, foibles, and follies, Lewis gives readers much more than a glance into his life during this time. He gives them the hope of a dream of their own, seen through his eyes.
"Some people have laughed and chalked the whole thing up to some bizarre mid-life crises – something I had to get out of my system…I suppose I could analyze the thing to death, working under the assumption that there should be some deep meaning. But I won’t. Building this treehouse was just something I wanted to do and while doing it I discovered I was still just a little kid. That’s reason enough to hang a house in the sky."
While many books claim to offer "something for everyone," Treehouse Chronicles can stand by this claim. For the nature lover, Lewis tells of forest creatures, farm animals, majestic trees, and crystal clear lakes and streams. For engineers and carpenters, he offers detailed insight into the plans for the treehouse from start to finish, explaining how the treehouse literally "hangs in the sky." Historians will enjoy Lewis’ description of his 185-year-old, hand-built home, the stone walls surrounding the property, and Lewis’ musings about how the property’s original settlers might have lived.
From a more reflective, emotional perspective, the author lovingly examines his relationships with his family and friends. This passage offers a perfect example of Lewis’ admiration of his parents: "Mom taught me to be amazed every day; Dad taught me how to fit stuff together. It was a magical combination – the treehouse was inevitable."
Most likely, this magnificent book is not one that readers would knowingly search for online or seek out in a local bookstore. Rather it is more likely to be found by accident. Whether it is sought out or stumbled upon, this book will not disappoint. This fascinating collection of one man’s thoughts, ideas and dreams, wrapped in a beautifully illustrated package, is apt to inspire everyone who reads it.
- Dana Blozis, ForeWordreviews.com
"Once in a while a great book comes along that takes your breath away." - DANA BLOZIS, ForeWordreviews.com
"Oh how I d love to spend days and nights in a two-floor, multi-decked, timberframe house hanging high in the branches of a very tall pine. That s the premise and the promise of this wonderfully entertaining book. The dream, subtly floating on each page is, well...everything. Treehouse Chronicles is enchanting." - JUDSON D. HALE, Sr., Editor-In-Chief, Yankee Magazine and The Old Farmer s Almanac
"This is a rare and wonderful book, very difficult to categorize, but easy to love. It s the story of a man s journey home, in the largest sense of those words. This is a story about reconnecting with the land, to the natural world, and to family and friends. It s about love and work." - JAY PARINI, Axinn Professor of English, Middlebury College, author, One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner
"One of the nastiest tricks of our culture is to insist that we "grow up," replacing a playful relationship with the world around us with a businesslike and sober (and environmentally destructive) attitude. The authors, happily, have not succumbed to this virus; instead, they have produced something childlike, in all the finest senses of that word, as beguiling a house as there could be." - BILL McKIBBEN, author, Wandering Home & The End of Nature
"Treehouse Chronicles is a classic story of people working in partnership with nature, in their own backyard, to build that most basic of human structures: a house. Determined to be sustainable by using recycled and found materials and by implementing the principles of biomimicry, Lewis and his friends build a wondrous treehouse. They created an enchanting thing, a flight of fancy held in the sky by a living arm of the earth. Weaving fine writing, photography, illustrations, and paintings together, this book is as inspiring to look at, as it is to read." - L. HUNTER LOVINS, Natural Capitalism, President
"In Treehouse Chronicles we find two men, without formal architectural or engineering training (lest we forget, Frank Lloyd Wright was not formally trained as an architect either) who take the simplest materials wood, steel, cable, and glass and toss them up into the air as art." - KENT HUBBELL, Professor of Architecture, Robert W. and Elizabeth C. Staley Dean of Students, Cornell University
"Peter Lewis has captured something here that people need to be reminded of everyday; it s the journey not the destination. In life s great balancing act, Peter deftly moves between the demands of a young family, a full-time job, and an all-consuming construction project in his back yard. His treehouse dream comes true, and along the way, through introspective and often hilarious writing, beautiful watercolors and many photographs, the reader gains a new best friend." - PETE NELSON, author, Treehouses: The Art and Craft of Living Out on a Limb, cofounder, TreeHouse Workshop
