One of the earliest surviving accounts of tree houses comes from, of all people, first-century philosopher Pliny the Elder. In his Natural History, published around 77 to 79, Pliny recounts a story about the Roman emperor Caligula, who appreciated the bounty of nature despite his tyrannical reputation. Pliny writes that Caligula was so “impressed” by a large plane tree that he had benches laid loosely on beams consisting of its branches within and held a banquet, calling it his “nest.” Though Pliny’s story is only a few sentences in an expansive text, it neatly summarizes the lingering fascination with the tree house: It marries the sublimity of the natural world with architecture. Caligula was so struck by the plane tree that he didn’t just want to observe it; he wanted to inhabit it.
He isn’t the only one enchanted by the idea. In his account, Pliny also describes a contemporary tree houseof some risk. And the mesh of feelings Pliny identified continues to follow the tree house, nearly 2,000 years later.
