This couple built 3 luxury treehouses on a picturesque Welsh farm and now rent them out — see inside

• Laura and John Lewis, a couple from Wales, built three luxury treehouses on their hillside farm.
• The latest treehouse, over a stream, cost the couple £150,000 and took six months to build.

In spring 2017, the Welsh sheep farmers Laura and John Lewis knew they needed another income to make their hillside farm more sustainable.

John Lewis, a trained carpenter whose family has owned the farm for three generations, wanted to build something on the land. At first, the couple thought they might build a holiday lodge. He trawled holiday-booking sites to see which homes jumped off the page. He decided instead, with the help of a farm loan, to build a treehouse.

He had built oak-framed houses, but this would be his first treehouse. The couple chose a large oak tree in a secluded part of the farm so their future guests would have some privacy. Then, with the help of a local architect, they drew up the plans for the treehouse.

At first, they were going to create an off-the-grid eco-hideaway, but then Laura Lewis said she knew she couldn't do without modern conveniences.

"I didn't feel very comfortable building something I wouldn't stay in," she told Business Insider. So they started to design a luxury treehouse.

A luxury treehouse was immediately more challenging. Their application for planning permission — formal approval from the authorities required for construction in the UK — was slow. Then the farm was struck by a snowstorm, which meant they were cut off from the site for three months.

"The snow disappeared after four weeks, but the ground was so wet we couldn't carry any materials to the site," Laura Lewis said.

With the help of his father, John Lewis then started building the treehouse, which they called Trawscwm. The treehouse and its shingle roof were made with locally sourced oak, larch, and red cedar, as well as pieces of wood they retrieved from the farm. The ground floor featured a living space, bedroom, and bathroom. It also had a ladder to take guests to the loft, where another bed was tucked away.

To ensure the treehouse could get electricity and water, they had to dig a borehole and pay a one-off fee for it to be connected to the electricity mains. Laura Lewis said plumbers and electricians were scarce and in demand in their rural location.

The couple spent £100,000, or about $126,000, to build Trawscwm. It opened in June 2018. At first, they worried such a rural location would struggle to get guests. But when they launched the treehouse on the glamping website Canopy & Stars, it was soon booked up.

"We didn't have a day empty for about six months," Laura Lewis said.

While they originally planned to build only one treehouse, the speed at which bookings came in encouraged them to build another. The couple chose a site in the field next to the first treehouse, in a tree with views over the Radnor Forest.

"The first treehouse was quite secluded, whereas this one would be all about the views," Laura Lewis said.

The couple looked at the images guests tagged the treehouse in on Instagram to see what they liked about it, such as a countryside view from the bathtub.

"They liked the 'wow' features, so we thought about this for the next design," she said.

Like Trawscwm, the Cadwollen treehouse included a copper tub. It also had a suspended hammock on the second floor above the lounge and a hot tub on a pier jutting out from the deck, 8 meters above the ground.

John Lewis brought in extra workers and machinery to help fulfill their plans for an extended deck.

"We were concerned about the wind, but we made sure it was extremely strong," he said.

It took him and his dad nine months to build the next treehouse. In 2019, they launched it on Canopy & Stars but noticed that their treehouses were attracting bookings via social media.

"Instagram was becoming a massive income stream," Laura Lewis said.

In February 2020, the couple created a website, called ToWander UK, to showcase their treehouses and holiday homes on other farms. While they didn't charge anyone for listings early in the pandemic, they now charge members £250 to £475 a year.

Eventually, the two treehouses and the website became so successful that Laura Lewis left her role in education to look after their booking site. They could afford to pay her a salary, as they were no longer paying a 20% commission to Canopy & Stars for bookings, she said.

The third treehouse was their most challenging. Designed for families, it sleeps seven and wraps around five trees. They also chose to build it over a stream and add a slide.

Having received planning permission to build it, they were about to start work in March 2020 but had to stop when the country went into lockdown. A month later, John Lewis' father died.

As they were now building during a pandemic, they were beset with delays. Wood was in short supply and expensive. Because they had chosen the banks of a stream to build on, the ground was wet, so they decided to use a steel frame. A truck had to navigate the muddy field to pour the concrete for the frame's footings.

"The frame came to the site in individual lengths, and then we bolted it together on the field," John Lewis said.

When it was complete, they used a crane to lift the steel frame into place.

They finished it in December 2020. The build cost £150,000. But as they were about to open for Christmas, the country went into lockdown again. The treehouses remained empty for the next three months.

When they furnished the treehouses, they used some products from the furniture store Dunelm, which Laura Lewis tagged in the images on Instagram. The Dunelm team reached out to her to ask if it could use one of them. It then suggested a competition for a stay in a treehouse. When the competition went live in November 2020, Laura Lewis said their Instagram account grew by about 44,000 followers in two days.

Then a couple asked if they could renew their vows in one of the treehouses. The Lewises didn't need to be licensed to hold the blessing, but they applied for a venue marriage license to conduct weddings there. In 2022, they held 18 weddings.

"We still work 9-to-5 in an office," Laura Lewis said. "It's just that John might have to also drive between the treehouses on a quad bike with clean bed linen."

They're also busy with their farm, and when it's lambing season, the guests can visit the lambing shed.

Laura and John Lewis also now have a team to help with their treehouses and the ToWander UK website. They have three part-time cleaners and three part-time staff members who oversee social media, admin, and finance.

The couple are now planning their fourth treehouse, aimed at couples, which they hope to build next summer.