Editor's Choice: The Tree House

Larger footprints took away too many banyan trees and required too much excavation. In the end, splitting the house into three levels and utilizing "attic" areas enabled the structure to fit on the smallest footprint.

Hawaii Home + Remodeling is proud to once again present an Editor's Choice Award as part of the Annual BIA Renaissance Building & Remodeling competition. From the contest's Residential categories, this year's award winner is a Manoa residence, "The Tree House," submitted by Welch & Weeks LLC.

Who doesn't love a tree house? Outside of inciting nostalgic childhood memories, this tree house-like home offers shade, privacy and flourishing, green views.

The house was designed by architectural firm Welch & Weeks for a family, with three children, who wanted a compact home that wouldn't change the tropical character of the property's lush hillside. Architect Darrell Welch Jr., AIA, recalls the site's challenges. "The property slopes fairly steeply, and the family wanted to preserve the maximum number of trees," he says. "Two of the big banyan tree trunks are within about five feet of the eaveÑon the front and back sides." By adjusting the home's dimensions and orientation, the firm "shoehorned it in." The result is a cohesive, well-suited Manoa Valley home, with branch-high views through the trees.

Overall, the house is defined by three architectural elements: location, a local feel and interesting spaces. The three-story house is organized with a central stair connecting all of its levels. The lower level is a carport, mud room, storage and a noisy video game room. The main level includes the children's rooms, entertainment, lanai and kitchen. The top level features loft ceilings and is home to the master suite.

The home's local feeling begins with its smaller, more humble size. "You see a lot of houses these days that have five, seven, 10,000 square feet of living area, and that's fun to look at when you're leafing through magazines," says Welch. "But it's unrealistic to think that most of us live in that size of house." On the contrary, because the tree house is built up rather than out, it's just over 3,000 square feet and fits into a fairly tight footprint.

Left: Given the deeply shaded hillside, the design includes maximum windows to bring in daylight and trade winds without over-heating the interior. Right: Several paralum and glulam beams were used to span large open areas, such as in the dining room.

A substantial reinforced concrete foundation anchors the building to the hillside, while minimizing water infiltration and termite intrusion. The exposed and economic concrete columns give a look of strength.

Embracing the virtues of building economically and making the most of space, Welch & Weeks came up with many lofty ideasÑliterally. The home's 12-foot-high gable roof not only gave the house extra vertical space, but it also created many "interesting spaces," such as sleeping lofts in the children's rooms. In some places, such as in the master suite, the steep roofline slopes down to meet side walls as low as five feet. Welch explains, "Head room is needed in the middle of the room, not against the wall where the bed and other furniture is placed. Like fitting the house between the trees, we were able to fit usable square footage into the house with the gable. We felt like it was an appropriate way to make the rooms look bigger than they really are," he says.

To emphasize the local feel in design, the firm installed a red, corrugated metal roof. "Red roofs are part of the Island's architectural history, as they were commonly used on plantation houses," Welch says. "And, they continue to evoke a rural feeling." He adds that the tree house's board-and-batten siding is also a traditional cottage wall treatment that, again, harks back to the 1800s agricultural era.

Cherry cabinets, oak floors and white cedar ceilings enhance the home's tree-house feel.

The house has its old-style charms, but nonetheless the family lives a modern lifestyle, with two parents who work fulltime from home. "One of the main issues is that they wanted a home office that was separate, but not isolated," Welch says. "Our solution was to put the office on the mezzanine, which is on the way to the upper level and the master suite. It's a quieter place since the kids wouldn't normally be passing through." Plus, the side-by-side desks have some of the best mountainside views. "We thought the mezzanine office was a fun way to address the office issue," Welch says. "And, the homeowners think it's one of the best features of the house."

As Welch's favorite room in the house, he says that the lanai is the place to go to just hang out. As an extension of the living room, the screened-in lanai projects to within five feet of one of the large banyan trees. Open to fresh air on three sides, even on the hottest days the lanai is cool. Welch notes that the lanai has a punee where the homeowners can lie down and take a nap or read a book. "It's quite nice," he admits. "You're practically sitting in a tree when you're up there. It's like being in a tree house."