One of the coolest roadside wonders of the United States is no more. Built nail by reclaimed nail over several decades by Minister Horace Burgess in Crossville, Tennesseee, “The Minister’s Treehouse” caught fire this week and burned to the ground within just 15 minutes. Anyone who was ever able to tour this 80-room wonder before its demise (like this writer) probably won’t be surprised by this news, since the whole thing felt like a tinder box all along.

Burgess broke ground on the treehouse in 1993, after he says God came to him and said “If you build me a treehouse, I will get you all the supplies.” As the supplies kept coming, often dropped off by community members, Burgess kept building. He had no prior building experience and never did plan anything out, just adding elements as inspiration and materials came.

Over the years, the treehouse hosted church services and was sometimes reportedly care-taken by homeless people who lived on the property. For decades, it was a word-of-mouth tourist attraction, drawing in 400-500 visitors a week, who would climb as high as they dared. The inside was full of pews, stained glass, rope swings art installations and a basketball court.

In 2012, the treehouse was closed to the public after the fire department deemed it unsafe. It’s easy to understand why, especially given its ultimate fate, but it feels like a loss nonetheless.

An enormous glittering inhabitable pine cone dangling from the majestic redwoods in Alameda, California could be transplanted to your very own backyard. Built by Dustin Fieder of O2 Treehouse, this highly unusual structure is equal parts sculptural wonder and enchanting getaway with its faceted glass exterior taking inspiration directly from its environment. The Pinecone Treehouse spent much of the last year available as an AirBnb rental, and now it’s up for sale.

Reachable by a ladder that stretches down to the ground, the Pinecone Treehouse features a spacious bed chamber inside and comes complete with a handcrafted indoor/outdoor bathroom connected to the treehouse by a wooden catwalk. Feider’s previous experience building geodesic treehouses clearly came in handy for this project, which takes a similar approach with a few tweaks to produce a classic pine cone shape.

In fact, the Pinecone Treehouse is just the latest of some 40-odd treehouses produced by Feider’s company. O2 Treehouse is known for its dazzling handcrafted structures, including a platform high up in the crowns of the trees in Geyserville, California and a geodesic structure set closer to the ground, built for Robby Krieger, guitarist for The Doors.

Fieder says he started O2 Treehouse “with the intention to inspire people to reconsider how we can more harmlessly co-exist with nature.”

“The Pinecone Treehouse is a space created to tap into your higher self, a space to rediscover your inner calm,” reads the AirBnb listing for the structure. “Cradled by those living giants the California Redwoods, one is invited to live in the vision of their dreams to quiet the mind until they can hear their inner truths, to reestablish a connection with nature and self.”

If you’re interested in making the Pinecone your own, rumor has it that the structure starts at $150,000 plus transport and installation fees that will vary depending on where you live. You can request more info at the O2 Treehouse website.

Encircling a 100-year-old oak – the tallest tree on the Château de Raray hotel property in France – the ORIGIN tree house by Atelier Lavit is envisioned as a tailored wooden ‘dress’ to make the oak stand out even more. This modern timber pod functions as a tree house hotel room, providing surprisingly spacious and comfortable lodgings accessed from a hanging bridge. Each facet of the geometric structure intersects the other, creating dynamic overlapping lines.

The effect is that of an abstracted bird’s nest – which is exactly what the architects were going for. “The design of the cabin, coupled with the construction techniques, led to a rationalization of the assembly logic of the branches collected by the birds to create their impregnable shelters,” they explain.

Measuring just under 250 square feet, the room includes a small sheltered patio from which the interiors are entered. Keep climbing the ladder set beside the tree’s trunk instead, and you’ll find yourself on the tree house’s rooftop terrace. Inside, the tree house is lined in pale wood with matching custom furniture. Guests enjoy a generously-sized bed looking out a large operable window to the branches beyond the glass. The room also includes a sitting area and a private bathroom.

Atelier Lavit recently took this same aesthetic in a different direction with a floating eco-hotel on a lake near Avignon, France. The series of buoyant suites on Lac de la Lionne are enveloped in criss-crossing timber slats, creating a semi-private outdoor area complete with a hot tub, while the beds inside are placed directly beneath skylights for a view of the stars.

Despite sharing a tiny footprint of land with other guests at this Chinese hotel, you can practically forget anyone else exists altogether thanks to a clever stacked arrangement that points each level in a different direction. Step out onto your private balcony – located on the roof of the room below – and look out onto the peaceful forest of rural Huang Shan, Anhui Province, China. Designed by Shanghai-based architecture firm Bengo Studio, the Qinyushan Tree House is a beautiful use of space.

A spiral staircase runs up through the center of the hotel, which includes two guest rooms, two bathrooms, one living room, and a ‘landscape room’ located at the top of the building. Each room has its own roof access with a glass railing to avoid interrupting views of the trees.

Elevated off the forest floor, the hotel features curvy volumes fanning out in different directions from the central core, capped on each cantilevered end by floor-to-ceiling windows. Guests ascend an enclosed glass hallway to either walk down into the lowest bedroom and bathroom, or ascend to the upper levels.

Its vertical wooden cladding helps it blend into its natural environment, and the minimalist design is an interesting take on modern treehouse-inspired structures.

Fed up with his fast-paced life in New York City, Foster Huntington quit his job, hopped into a Volkswagen van and traveled around the country before settling in Washington state to build his dream treehouse dwelling complete with a skate bowl and wood-fired soaking tub. The photos alone are enough to make anyone daydream about doing the same. Set against a hazy landscape just across the Columbia River from the Oregon border, two compact structures are nestled high up in the fir trees, connected by a meandering bridge.

The 27-year-old adventurer and photographer gathered a group of friends to help him make his dream into a reality. It took them about a year to complete ‘the Cinder Cone,’ as he calls it, with one building functioning as a sleeping cabin and the other a workshop. Each measures about 200 square feet, and the sleeping cabin has bunk beds and hammocks to fit a group.

The getaway feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere, but it’s close to Portland. The spacious hot tub on a deck further down the hillside keeps things cozy in cold weather, and Huntington and his guests have their own private skate park just a few steps down from the workshop. The friends involved in the building process referred to the Cinder Cone as “big-boys camp” and “Neverland.” It’s all very Portlandia, and The New York Times called it ‘Bro-topia,’ which sounds about right, but it’s hard to deny that the place is incredibly dreamy.

Huntington has produced both a short film and a photo book documenting the building process, and lots of photos – from the very beginning of the project to its enviable usage today – can be seen on his Instagram.