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subject: For Your Inner Child: A Green Treehouse Hotel In A Green Swedish Forest [print this page]

You gotta hand to the SwedesYou gotta hand to the Swedes. They know how to sleep with Mother Nature, who can be pretty darn wild in their Nordic north. A few years back, it began with Icehotel. That wildly successful venture in the Swedish Artic Circle is rebuilt every winter, and guests flock from all over the world to live inside stylish ice carvings. Now comes the latest Swedish natural high -- Treehotel. These amazing eco lodgings, in a pine forest in Lapland, opened earlier this year with four architecturally unique tree houses, plus a treetop sauna. Things have gone so well that an additional two "up" market suites have just been added, with plans to build another 18 within five years.

The beautiful pine forest that surrounds Treehotel, 40 miles south of the Artic Circle, was slated for timbering only a year ago, but now it has been preserved. Nearby flows the Lule River. The closest town is the hamlet of Harads. The treehouses themselves were built using local sustainable wood and feature green innovations. Among these are freezer toilets (which freeze waste for later removal) or "cinderellas," which burn up waste. Daily use of one of these incinerators is said to produce only a single cup of ash residue in an entire year.

These are the newest suites:

Beam me up, Scotty. Up into the The UFO, an alien craft from the outside and a deluxe, modern accommodation for two adults and two kids inside. Who can't imagine themselves peering out at the forest through its space-age portholes?

You'll quickly understand why the other new treehouse is named Room With A View. Indeed, depending on where you look, the view is completely distinct. From the roof terrace, you see all around you. From the dining area, the Lule River dominates. The elevated bedroom looks out onto the dense pine forest. And the bathroom's windows face straight up to the sky.

But wait. There are the "pioneer" treehouses too.

The Mirror Cube is a mirror-clad cube in the pine trees. It's coated in a special way that makes it visible to birds but not us, so it seems to disappear completely from the outside, only to reappear as the sun returns from behind the clouds. Inside, it's filled with glorious light, and spacious enough for a kitchenette.

The Bird's Nest. Totally wild, it's circular and covered on the outside with foraged branches. It's like a cocoon, with furnishings in dark felt and only a few small porthole windows for light. Once guests are inside, a ladder operated by remote control is withdrawn completely, so that from below only the branches of the nest are visible.

Another space for those who like their views, The Cabin has windows that extend from ceiling to floor. It's panelled in birch.

The Blue Cone is traditional but not. Yes, the split birch siding is a common motif in Swedish country cottages. But the conical shape is anything but traditional, and why is it more reddish than blue? You climb into this one from a birch-clad bridge from the mountain behind.

by: Gary Diedrichs

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