Lofty Goals Pine Tree Camp to build Maine’s first fully accessible treehouse

ROME – Any kid who has ever climbed a tree knows the world looks different from up there. From the vantage point of a swaying, leafy perch, distant landscapes come into view. Adults on the ground look smaller. Birds and squirrels seem friendlier. The sky and the clouds blowing across it are almost in reach.

If you had a tree house, you could just about live up there. You could eat a sandwich and stow your treasures and tell your secrets to a special friend. You could read a book or write a poem. You could even sleep there, knowing your treetop hideaway is really just a few steps from the safety of more conventional shelter and the people there who care about you.

Especially in Maine, where lovely trees grace so many communities, it seems like every child should know this mildly subversive experience. But for thousands of mentally or physically disabled Maine children – and adults – scrambling into the branches of a tree is out of the question, about as likely as suddenly sprouting wings and flying off into the sky.

That’s about to change, though, with the construction of the state’s first tree house which is fully accessible to the disabled.

“I’ve never been able to climb a tree, so it’ll be really nice to be able to be up there with everyone else,” said Alexander native Cassie Oakes, who recently wrapped up her 12th season at the Pine Tree Camp in Rome, not far from Waterville. Using a wheelchair all her life due to a rare form of multiple sclerosis, Oakes said there are many things she loves about camp.

“I do drama every year,” she said – this season, she played Fern in the stage adaptation of E.B. White’s classic story “Charlotte’s Web.” With the help of the camp’s specially trained staff, she also enjoys swimming in the balmy waters of North Pond, and she said the camp food is great.

Oakes said she has attended other camps, but Pine Tree is her favorite because its sole focus is on meeting the recreational needs of people like her, who confront countless obstacles to everyday experiences. And even though she’s 21, she will keep coming back every year because Pine Tree offers sessions for people of all ages and all kinds of disabilities.

“I start counting the days as soon as I get home,” Oakes said, wheeling off to await her next entrance on the plywood stage of the new rec hall.

Pine Tree Camp, a program of the Bath-based Pine Tree Society, has been providing rich summertime experiences to Maine children and adults for more than 50 years. Although the “charge” for a 10-day session is $1,700, campers pay only what they can afford, thanks to a mosaic of private foundation funding and the generous support of former campers and their families and friends.

Campers come from all over the state – and from other states if they’re lucky enough to have Maine connections. They swim and fish and sail and giggle at night with new friends in rustic lakeside cabins. They learn archery and pottery and bird identification. They have summer romances. They sing camp songs and eat camp food and wear camp T-shirts.

And next summer, they’ll have a tree house to explore.

Forever Young Treehouses, a Vermont-based nonprofit organization that specializes in building accessible tree houses, has designed one just for Pine Tree campers. In a grove of white pines near the path to the overnight tenting area, sturdy trunks have been selected as corner posts for the tree house, which will be reached by a winding ramp with a gradual slope. The tree house will be built of rustic materials with 400 square feet of enclosed space wrapped with a balustraded deck. A network of nature trails will invite wanderers to explore the surrounding area.

The project will get under way this month and be completed by the time camp opens next spring at a cost of $145,000. Program director Dawn Willard said fundraising for the project continues, but so far all but about $50,000 has been raised through private donations of cash, materials and labor – including engineering services provided at no cost by WBRC Architects/Engineers in Bangor.

Jill Simpson, an assistant project manager at WBRC, said the firm recently completed a detailed assessment and long-term facilities plan for the camp. The tree house was mentioned at a meeting, she said, and the firm agreed to provide engineering support for the project, which must be not only inviting and accessible but also safe, sound and strong.

An adult or adolescent in a power wheelchair might weigh 400 pounds, Simpson noted, so the inclined ramp and the tree house itself must be well supported and built of enduring materials. The entire structure will be “beefy … compared to what you’d normally associate with a tree house,” Simpson said.

Forever Young Treehouses, founded in 2000, has built 20 accessible tree houses in 14 states – six in public parks and gardens and the remainder at private schools and camps like Pine Tree. Bill Allen, executive director and founder, said he has been impressed with the “barnraising” enthusiasm for the Pine Tree Camp project.

“It’s great to be working in an area where people understand that if someone’s doing something nice for kids, you really ought to help them,” he said.

With more than 600 energetic campers arriving each summer from every corner of the state, Pine Tree Camp’s goal of keeping them all active, happy and engaged with the natural world is a challenge, Willard noted. Advances in medicine and technology, along with changing laws and social standards, she said, have raised everyone’s expectations that individuals with disabilities should participate as fully as possible in life’s many experiences.

The new tree house will provide another opportunity for them to do just that.

For information about Pine Tree Camp, or to make a donation to the tree house project or see a drawing of the tree house, visit www.pinetreesociety.org or phone 443-3341.