These epic $400,000 treehouses feel like works of art

Dustin Feider never expected to become a full-time treehouse designer. But for the last two decades, he’s made a career out of building treehouses as a form of art. In one of his projects, a geometric pod shaped like a pinecone is suspended 50 feet above the ground inside a grove of giant redwood trees.

In another project, tucked behind a house in Northern California, a 30-foot-high spiral staircase leads to a large wooden deck for dinner parties, with tunnels underneath for children to play. Across a rope bridge, a geodesic dome hangs in the air between another cluster of redwoods. In L.A., another spherical treehouse was exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and then installed in the backyard of Doors guitarist Robby Krieger.

These aren’t typical treehouses—and some can cost as much as an actual house. Feider’s company, O2 Treehouse, charges a minimum of $50,000 for a base custom model. But its average treehouse costs an eye-popping $400,000.

Feider started thinking about treehouses in a class project when he was studying furniture design at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He took inspiration from Buckminster Fuller’s famous geodesic domes. “I was considering a form for a modern treehouse, with this idea that you could create something that was flat-packed and shippable,” he says.

After graduating, he took a series of other design jobs, but simultaneously put together a website with his design. His first client wanted a geodesic treehouse mounted 50 feet up a poplar tree in Wisconsin. Initially, Fieder thought the treehouses would be the first in a series of different products that focused on sustainable design. But they quickly became so popular that he never stopped making them.

After some early media coverage, he started working with a client in Beverly Hills, and then ended up building treehouses for others on the same block. The projects kept coming, and Fieder realized that he had a viable business. “I thought, wow, this can work,” he says. O2 Treehouse now employs around 40 people, including woodworkers and metalworkers who build prefab parts in a shop in Northern California, designers, and three construction crews.

The process takes time. First, the team visits a new site and starts sketching and discussing early ideas with the client. They also carefully study the available trees—something that’s made easier with iPhones, which now have LiDAR scanners that can map out a tree’s exact form.

The design and engineering process usually takes three months. Prefabricating the parts takes another three months, and installation typically takes three months as well. Some projects take longer; one treehouse completed in 2024 took a year and a half to finish.

The company has custom hardware that helps securely attach the treehouses to trees without restricting the trees’ movement. The weight is enormous: the dangling “pinecone,” for example, weighs 5.5 tons. But large trees can support the structures without harming the tree’s health. “The trees grow outward and basically seal around the hardware,” Fieder says. “It’s a natural process of healing that wound.”

So far, the company has built more than 100 treehouses. Most are for recreation, though Fieder has envisioned more complex designs that could serve as homes. “The idea being that when you buy a new property, you don’t have to clear the trees to build your house,” he says. “We actually plan the programming of your house around the trees are already on site, creating courtyards and an indoor-outdoor type of living space.”

The company is now beginning to build treehouses where guests can stay through a franchise it calls Treewalkers, beginning with a glamping site near Atlanta.

As people ascend into the tree canopy, looking through a treehouse’s large windows at a new view of the woods, Fieder wants to help inspire them to take better care of the planet. “I’ve been on this mission to reconnect people with nature through these architectural experiences in the woods,” he says. Treewalkers “will allow us to release our works from private backyards and open it to the public.”