He Built a Two-Story Treehouse From Forgotten Barns

In Wakefield, Quebec, a builder rescues logs and raises a home into the wind. He’s testing his craft, his patience, and whether salvaged history can stand up to real weather now.

He Lifts a House Into the Trees

Nine hemlock posts punch through a second-story floor and disappear into the sky, the whole structure pinned to bedrock like a tent in a gale. It reads as light, but every joint says otherwise.

From below, it looks like a log cabin learned to hover. The heated home sits upstairs; the ground floor stays open to air and seasons.

He calls it a treehouse because that’s how it should feel: high, exposed, a little wild. And you enter from underneath, so the first step is a small leap.

He Enters From a Cliff, Not a Staircase

A narrow bridge leaves a rock face and lands you on a deck that still feels like outside. No ladder. No ceremonial climb. Walk the horizon line, then duck inside.

Downstairs, the patio reads like a summer living room—bar, table, a netted nook for naps. They considered closing it in for winter, then didn’t. It’s too good as a porch.

Snow blows through in January and melts into a sloped concrete floor. Everything drains. Everything dries. The quiet proof of someone thinking a season ahead.

Around the corner, a full bathroom hides behind glass and ceramic, warm underfoot, indulgent against the raw wood. Luxury has a job here: keep people comfortable so they keep coming back.

Winter Forces a Compromise

At first, every nighttime bathroom trip meant boots and a parka. After one icy week, he carves out a tiny upstairs washroom. It’s barely a room, but it changes everything.

Upstairs is the heart: kitchen, dining, living, two sleeping corners, all in a single room wrapped in old logs. The heat comes from the floor, silent, no fans, no hum.

The living area measures eighteen by twenty, but the edges blur. A fold-out couch makes the space do double duty without looking like a trick.

He Collages History Into Warmth

Every wall is a patchwork of past lives. Hand-hewn barn logs squared by axe, some clean, some nicked and painted, all fitted together like a sentence half in one century, half in another.

He doesn’t pretend the logs hold the weight. They hold the story and the weather, a skin of memory over modern bones.

Step onto the screened porch and the ground drops away. Thirty-five feet up, the wind owns the room. The screens aren’t for bugs; they keep wine glasses from flying.

He locks the doors against sudden gusts. In summer they stay flung open for weeks, hinges tanning in the sun.

The kitchen is the one place he buys new: small stove, clean cabinets, well water, a little pantry, a mini-fridge that hums like a distant bee. It’s tidy, unfussy, ready.

The dining table seats four and faces the view like a congregation. Sunsets pour over plates. Conversations stretch.

A single bedroom tucks into a corner with one mattress and no apology. Rest isn’t a performance here.

The master starts as an idea for a wall, then becomes a stage. Raise the bed, meet the horizon, add a coffee bar at arm’s reach. Mornings arrive as a private show.

Beneath the bed, storage swallows clutter. Two steps away, that tiny upstairs bathroom quietly saves a winter night.

He Uses Everything He’s Saved

For two decades he hauled scraps home: siding, roof metal, barn wood. When the right site met the right moment, he finally spent the pile.

The posts define the project. Nine columns, each forty feet, reclaimed when a lot was cleared. He refuses to cut them. “Use every inch,” he tells himself, and does.

Salvage is a puzzle with missing pieces. When he runs short, he buys just enough to bridge a gap, then hides the seam in the rhythm of old and new.

From a distance, it stops looking like leftovers. It looks intentional. That’s the trick: make the past read like a plan.

Storms Rewrite the Roof

This hill sees weather first. Storm cells parade in, armor clattering. At that height, he feels every gust in his teeth.

He scraps the original gable facing the view—it would stand like a sail in thunder—and draws a lower, sleeker line the wind can’t grab.

Then he crowns the room with a cupola. Light drops in from above. Hot air escapes. The space breathes without machines.

Four-foot overhangs shade the glass even when the sun hunts for angles. A fat layer of insulation in the roof keeps summer out and winter in.

With the floor radiant and the roof sealed, the room stays even, like a held note. No fans, no clatter, just warm boards and weather at the windows.

He Hides the Lifelines and Names the Why

Power comes from the grid, but you don’t see the tether. He buries the service and the well line in one trench, heat-taped and insulated so the water never freezes.

He says “I built it,” then corrects himself. Wakefield Construction is his crew, his people. They frame, lift, pour, and tweak until the house feels tuned.

Deadlines would have made it a job. He wants a test instead—to reconnect with the trade that raised him, to pour everything he knows into something that will outlast a storm.