Handmade house in the trees

Gail Hederman preserves an artist's private retreat while creating a family hideaway

By Debbie Stringer

Gail Hederman of Magee met Mendenhall artist Johnny Knight only once, just long enough to say hello. But for years she had heard talk of a mysterious “treehouse” he spent 30 years building in the woods. Now she owns it.

The octagon-shaped wood-shingled treehouse rests on massive cypress stumps and timbers in rural Simpson County. A log staircase, capped with a cone-shaped roof, sprouts from the ground like a toadstool and spirals upward to the front door.

The structure’s sectioned walls angle outward some 30 degrees to connect with a circular roof.

Knight sketched the plans on napkin, the story goes. He started work on it in 1971.

Knight kept his architectural oddity private. He didn’t mind answering questions from curious acquaintances in town, but few if any were invited to see it.

“From what I’ve been told, he was the local eccentric,” said Hederman, a member of Southern Pine Electric Power Association. “Yet he drove the church bus on trips for the kids and he went to church. He was around town all the time. He had a little dog named Eastwood who went with him everywhere he went.”

Knight worked on his treehouse while living with his father in Mendenhall. After his father’s death, the aging bachelor moved into the treehouse, where he spent the last seven years of his life.

Knight’s siblings put the treehouse up for auction in 2004, a few years after his death in his 70s. That’s when Hederman got her first look at what would become an obsession for the next few years.

“I just absolutely fell in love with it—immediately, before I even saw the inside. And the inside was just a disaster,” she said.
The ceiling was collapsing, the wood floor rotting. Walls had been left unfinished. Splattered paint marred the floor, and the wood stove overflowed with ashes. Outside, the dirt yard was stacked head-high with cut wood and salvage.

Yet, Hederman said, “I just felt so driven to save it. I cannot explain it.”

Her husband, Arnold, was less enthusiastic. “He was thinking, oh my gosh, but trying to be so polite,” she said.

Unsure just how to save the deteriorating treehouse—if it could be saved—Hederman successfully bid for it and the surrounding four-and-a-half acres of forested hillside. “My husband always says that I got it because I was the only one that bid on it, but that is certainly not true,” she said with a laugh.

Her first move was to seek professional help. She e-mailed photos and a description of the treehouse to John Harris, president of Scotland-based TreeHouse Co., the world’s largest treehouse builder. He offered to fly over to evaluate the structure and make recommendations.

Harris advised Hederman to jettison the treehouse’s heavy wooden window shutters and thick doors (salvaged from a local bank) to reduce weight. He devised a working plan for major repairs and offered general dos and don’ts.

“He was a big help because I really would have made a lot of mistakes, I think, had I not had somebody who really knew what he was doing,” she said.

Hederman recalled how Harris marveled at Knight’s spider-like system of roof-support beams. “He said, you know, theoretically this ceiling should not be standing. He said it’s just fascinating that it works, because it shouldn’t.”

(Renovation work later revealed the secret: Like spokes on a wheel, 16 beams radiate downward from a hub, a hidden steel tube estimated to weigh 300 pounds.)

Harris also answered a nagging question: Is it really a treehouse if it’s not built in a tree? “He said he would call it a treehouse. People would argue that, I’m sure, but it’s always been called a treehouse. To the people that knew Johnny and have always known of this place, it’s a treehouse,” Hederman said.

The treehouse was sagging 3 inches to one side and its cypress stump supports were rotting. Hederman hired a company to level the treehouse with a new timber support system, which now bears the structure’s entire weight. The cypress stumps were filled with concrete and left in place.

A friend referred Hederman to former Mize resident Tim Hudson for carpentry work. It was a serendipitous choice. “If Johnny Knight were here, he’d really like this guy because Tim was thinking along the lines I think Johnny must have when he built this place.”

Hudson devoted most of two-and-a-half years to the job. A devout man, he used the project as a personal ministry by hiring workers at a local mission. “I’ll never know what kind of seeds grew from his ministry, but he tried very hard,” Hederman said.

Hudson added a small sleeping loft—a feature Knight had wanted—and cut tree limbs for banisters. It’s a fun hideout for the Hedermans’ grandchildren, who have to climb a ladder to reach it. Grown-ups sleep below in a bed flanked by cedar support posts and windows, next to the full bathroom.

Hudson retained Knight’s open floor plan but knocked out one of the angled exterior walls to make room for a fully equipped kitchen.

A propane fireplace of stacked stones and panoramic views of the pine forest beyond dominate the living area. Hederman installed a heating and cooling system for year-round comfort, and a security system to keep the forest gnomes at bay.

To remind visitors they are in a treehouse, Hudson placed a small tree trunk (with limbs) to appear as if it were passing through the kitchen on its way toward the sky. He left in place the cedar trunks Knight used as support posts along the octagon’s perimeter. Hudson precisely cut planks of knotty pine so that the 16 sections of the tongue-and-groove ceiling would match.

Hudson and Hederman chose artisan-made fixtures of natural materials, including cabinet knobs carved from river stone, a bathroom basin gouged from a polished boulder, and a vanity and a kitchen bar crafted of thick redwood slabs.

Stained-glass windows by Raymond glass artist Jerry Hymel add splashes of color to the bathroom and the entrance. A few pieces of Knight’s own art work hang on the knotty pine walls, including a reproduction of his painting of the treehouse, its windows glowing in the twilight.

The end result of all the planning, repairs and renovating is a comfortable hideaway for the Hedermans, as well as their six children and 13 grandchildren.

Gail Hederman also uses the treehouse as a quiet place to write fiction. While spending long hours at the site during the renovation, she wrote stories inspired by a close friend who is “always getting herself into things.” Last fall, she published her first novel, “Cold Biscuits,” about the misadventures of four friends.

“It’s a quirky Southern tale about friendship,” she said. “It develops into kidnapping, drug dealers and this mysterious man named Earl who lives in a treehouse. It’s a simple, fun story.”

Hederman is already at work on her next book. Maybe the treehouse generates a creative vibe, the legacy of its artist builder. Its seclusion is certainly conducive to creative thought and an appreciation of nature.

“I could sit out on the deck forever,” Hederman said. “I definitely see why Johnny chose this spot.”

Gail Hederman’s treehouse is not open to the public, but she welcomes correspondence through her Web site, www.gailhederman.com.

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