FALL/WINTER2016
MLCM
149
HEMLOFT
LIVES!
ICONICWHISTLERTREEHOUSETOBE
REPURPOSEDATCANADIANWILDERNESS
ADVENTURES
words :: Brian Peech
It’s been almost four years since Allan Crawford of
CanadianWilderness Adventures acquired the Hemloft (a
“secret” egg-shaped treehouse that was tucked sneakily
inWhistler’s Kadenwood forest) and the iconic structure
still sits in storage.
Or does it?
“Tomake it fun for people, like the original builder did, I’m
thinking of telling people they can go try to find it,” says
Crawfordwith a laugh. “Maybe it’s in a shipping container,
maybe it’s in thewoods somewhere, nobody knows.”
All trickery aside, Allan hopes to have the Hemloft up
and available to the public this year, citing engineering
and code regulations as major hurdles. “We had somany
people calling us demanding that it be kept free,” he
says. “In its old location, people were having raves at it,
having weddings at it, lighting it up with Christmas lights
and having parties at it. So we decided the liability was
too high to leave it up in the woods.”
The Hemloft joins Crawford’s growing quiver of recycled
and repurposed buildings in the Callaghan Valley, which
includes the former Whistler Chamber of Commerce
building, the log building that sat unused for years at the
corner of Highway 99 and Cheakamus Lake Road, and
a recently acquired building from BMW that had been
temporarily set up in Vancouver. In the age of reuse/
reduce/recycle, Crawfordmight be king.
The Hemloft story began in 2009 when burgeoning
carpenter Joel Allen, who’d abandoned his career as a
software developer, covertly built the unique structure in
the forest of aWhistler subdivision. With little experience,
Allen, who had been camping out in the woods and
sleeping in whatever shelter he could stumble upon, “just
wanted to build something cool” and set out to design
and construct the
Hemloft, hauling
piece by piece into
the woods under
the cloak of secrecy
and darkness.
Little did he know
that his clandestine
tree fort would go on to
be featured in some of the
most reputable architectural
publications in the world, and
spawn a cult-like following of both
locals and tourists looking to find the
hideout.
“I first became intrigued about the Hemloft
about a year before it came down,” says Crawford.
“Not somuch about the tree house initially, but about
Joel Allen’s marketing. He had the world searching for
this mysterious treehouse that was all over the Internet
and wasn’t secret whatsoever. People were hiking in the
woods in all the wrong places trying to find it.”
Built on crown land, the Hemloft became one of the
worst kept secrets inWhistler, with hand drawnmaps
circulating around town amidst hushed tones and
knowing glances. As the years passed, Allen left the
Whistler area and was unable to care for the structure.
Thus, it was time for the Hemloft to come down. He
initially offered it for free on Craigslist (a tip of the hat
to the means by which he sourcedmany of the materials
for the build), but after seeing such an overwhelming
response, decided to sell it and donate the proceeds
to charity. An application process was initiated, and
CanadianWilderness came forward with the winning bid.
“We offered $5,000, but we’ve spent maybe $20,000 on
it already, and we haven’t even started construction,”
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