As short-term rentals gain popularity across Sonoma County, some zany options for accommodations have emerged in Petaluma, including one that’s nestled about 30 feet up in a tree in Cherry Valley.
The treehouse, owned by Petaluman Joe McDonald, can be booked through Airbnb, a website offering nightly accommodations from hosts in more than 190 countries. McDonald said he’d originally enlarged and remodeled the existing treehouse as a guest bedroom, but ultimately decided to offer the airy space as an option for travelers.
“The original treehouse was there when I bought the house about five years ago,” he said. “It was small and I couldn’t even stand up in it. It just sat there for a few years in this majestic cork oak tree, empty and forlorn, until I decided to make it larger and more comfortable.”
The 63-year-old photographer hired local contractor Ray Todt, who collaborated with McDonald to create a space with 12-foot ceilings, a sleeping loft, a metal circular staircase and “all the amenities that one would want or need,” he said.
The entire treehouse, which has room for two adults with a bed and a bathroom, as well as a TV and wireless internet, can be booked for $155 nightly.
McDonald, who said he’s been a member of Airbnb for less than a year, joined as a way to recover some of the expenses from updating the treehouse, and as an opportunity to showcase the space.
“I felt it was so unique that I wanted to share it with others,” he said, adding that treehouses have been close to his heart since his parents built a treehouse 40 feet above ground at his childhood home in Iowa, and the structure was immortalized _on the cover of Picture magazine.
Gale Hayman, an artist in Ojai, was the first person to stay in the treehouse last May. Originally a New Yorker, Hayman grew up sailing in Martha’s Vineyard and compared her experience in the treehouse to that of being on the water while sailing.
Read more @ http://www.petaluma360.com/entertainment/5362375-181/visitors-stay-in-petaluma-in?artslide=0
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