As we've seen before, a playhouse, by any other name, is basically a mansion for kids. Today the New York Times picks up on this building/parenting trend and runs a story on the most absurd (Editor's Note: mindblowingly absurd) playhouses money can buy. Ahoy, the story's most shocking lines:
10. "Best sellers include a two-story Colonial-style house with a balcony and colonnaded porch, and a miniature medieval castle with turrets and secret passages."
9. "Apart from the open bar by the swimming pool, the main attraction at parties held at the Houston home [...] is the $50,000 playhouse the couple had custom-built two years ago for their daughter [...]"
8. "Upstairs is a sitting area with a child-size sofa and chairs for watching DVDs on the 32-inch flat-screen TV."
7. "There are a number of companies and independent craftsmen that make high-end playhouses, which can cost as much as $200,000 [...]"
6. "Childhood is a precious and finite thing,” [treehouse artist] Barbara Butler said. “And a special playhouse is not the sort of thing you can put off until the economy gets better.”
5. "Built in the same Cape Cod style as the [...] expansive main house, the two-story 170-square-foot playhouse has vaulted ceilings that rise from five to eight feet tall, furnishings scaled down to two-thirds of normal size, hardwood floors and a faux fireplace with a fanciful mosaic mantel."
4. "To furnish [the playhouse], Heather Hach Hearne bought a little table and chairs, along with a purple chandelier, and had the handyman wire the playhouse for electricity, drawing power from the garage. She also had him lay 99-cent faux stone tiles on the floor. 'I was going for the stone-castle floor look,' she explained."
3. "[Model] Red Beard’s Revenge, for example, is a $52,000 playhouse in the shape of a 12-foot-tall, 18-foot-long pirate ship, complete with a crow’s nest, upper and lower decks made of mahogany and leather benches in the captain’s quarters that double as beds."
2. "The Illinois model ($12,485, including interior lighting) looks like the sort of house a little Mies van der Rohe might have wanted in his backyard."
1. “'We’ve got chairs arrayed all around it, so we can watch the kids run, climb and scream,' [playhouse owner] Dan Burnham said. 'It’s adorable and worth every penny.' (Nearly $248,000 for the two structures.)"
Photo: Kevin Scanlon/NYT
· Child's Play, Grown-Up Cash [NYT]
· Terrific Custom Treehouses Elevate the Childhood Standard [Curbed National]
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