Stories

1. The Treehouse
2. Streaker
3. Midnight Swimming
4. Innocent Victim
5. School Fires
6. Caretaker
7. Waves
8. Halls of Horror
9. Living on the Edge
10. Free to Run
11. More to come

The Treehouse

... previous

If you've been on the Old Yale Road side of the park, you may have seen an interesting treehouse there. It's located on the west side of Old Yale in a resident's yard just before the park grass turns to forest. The owner was kind enough to tell us more about it:

We've had a lot of fun with that treehouse. It's given us a few interesting stories and caused many smiles over the years.

I built it for my two sons about 1985 or '86, two or three years after we moved in. Saying "for my sons" would be a half-truth. I've always had a fondness for treehouses myself and those big maples were begging for one.

It was constructed mostly with salvaged materials. Other than the nails, nuts and bolts type of stuff, we only bought a couple of 2 X6's and the post that holds up the balcony end. The framing material came from an old shed in the backyard and plywood for the roof and floor from cast-off railcar packing. 12" wide old growth cedar siding that came from an early Maillardville (Coquitlam) house finished the walls.

A few thick tow rope sections lost from tugboats and found at Brownsville bar made for great swings. The neighbourhood kids loved the one that you could swing on from the balcony down to the ground. They spent many hours up there, playing and imagining. Our dog even learned how to climb the ladder to be up there with them.

They got older, found other interests and the tree house was ignored except for the occasional teenager seeing how fast and far they could swing on one of the ropes. My wife almost had me convinced it was time to take it down. A hard thing for a fan of treehouses to do so I had been putting it off.

My reprieve came when I mounted a few fancy brass balls off a discarded child's bed on the posts of the balcony railing. Completely changed the look and the possibilities of the old place in my mind. By the end of the week I had flower boxes under the windows and around the edge of the deck. Over the next few months wind chimes were hung and wall decorations were fixed here and there. Silk flowers and foilage were "planted" by my wife as they were acquired. Not only was it looking nicer, it was a great place to finally use some of the junk I'm in the habit of dragging home.

People began to notice. They would point, smile and comment as they walked by. Cars will slow, with the parents pointing it out to the kids and maybe snapping a picture or two. Seeing people grinning and enjoying our fun has been one of the nicer pleasures of having the treehouse.

When I overheard somebody in Safeway saying "You know the treehouse on Old Yale? Just go a block past that and turn", I knew it was becoming a bit of a local landmark. A couple of years later my oldest son was talking to two pre-teens in Kwantlen Park. Somehow the treehouse came up. My son played stupid and they began to tell him about it. According to the school yard stories, it was haunted. With it's creaking boards and the doors banging in the wind at night I can see how that idea might start. The story then got a little stranger. The residents of the main house had made their elderly parents stay up there. There was talk of how they had disappeared, probably murdered, hence the haunting. Don't ask me how we skipped being investigated and charged. The kids certainly didn't need an answer to that in order to believe.

The treehouse has a make believe address, 12898 B, above the door and a mailbox on the balcony. This caused some confusion with a new lady delivering the local newspaper. She was at the bottom of the driveway looking confused and glancing up at the treehouse. I walked down and asked if I could help her. Her grasp of English wasn't great and it took me a couple of times to understand. How could she get up there and deliver the paper to the mailbox for 12898 B Old Yale? We both had a laugh when I explained she wouldn't have to climb the ladder.

We've had people ask for tours. We even had a young couple, holding their wedding in the park, ask if they could climb up and get some pictures for the wedding album of themselves "moving into the new house". Unfortunately by that time the floor was unsafe and we had to say no. Would have liked to have that picture in our album. It's also caught the eye of a reporter driving by who was working on a story about Old Yale Road. He ended up giving it a good write up in the article.

For a couple of Halloweens we did it up haunted style with scary sounds and lighting. That worked well but it was a lot of effort for the 10 or 12 kids that make it to our door. We've just recently gotten into the habit of decorating it for Christmas with lights and cast-off Christmas decorations. That lead, in 2006, to it being the first treehouse to be included in the Vancouver Sun list of Christmas light displays to see. For the 2007 holiday season we added a few more lights and ended up being featured in both the Sun and Province papers. Hopefully we can add to the display and make a few more people smile during the next holiday season.

At the moment it needs a paint job, a few nails and some fresh flowers in the window boxes. We've enjoyed it so many ways over the years it's likely you'll see us up there one day taking care of that. After all, if we knocked it down, how could people give directions?

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