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By JOEL ELLIOTT
Staff Writer

enlarge Staff photo by Jim Evans

TREE HOUSE SITE: Volunteers including Dan Barbeau are helping to make a tree house a reality at Pine Tree Camp.

enlarge Staff photo by Jim Evans

FUNDRAISER: Nicholas Alexander, 6, raised $2,500 for the Pine Tree Camp's tree house.

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Pine Tree Camp's tree house will take advantage of hillside construction to give access and a feeling of being aloft.

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"It was fun. It was silly," he says, nodding his head for emphasis. "It was fun, and fun, and fun, and fun."

Nicholas doesn't consider silly and fun to be bad things. At one point in the conversation, he decides to take his own notes, pulling out a notepad and two pens -- a large red one with regular ink, the other filled with invisible ink, with a foot-long yellow sunflower jutting out from the end.

He occasionally scribbles on a notepad on the tray attached to his wheelchair.

Like any other child, Nicholas wants to have fun, and he wants to play with children his age. But cerebral palsy gives him options for fun that sometimes differ from those of other children.

That makes the discovery of the Pine Tree Society's wheelchair-accessible treehouse project even more exciting, according to Nicholas' aunt, Jean Saucier. The Pine Tree Society plans to begin construction on the 1,000-square-foot treehouse in a Sept. 17 ceremony, finishing up construction in time for spring. The company that designed the treehouse, Forever Young Treehouses of Vermont, aims to build a similar treehouse in every state. This will be the only one of its kind in Maine, according to Rice.

Saucier, Nicholas and his father, Keith Alexander, so far have raised a total of $2,500 for the project, mostly from area businesses and individuals. Pine Tree Society has taken in about $102,000 for the project, with about $43,000 still needed.

"I can't wait to see him in that treehouse," Saucier said. "What a sense of independence it will give him."

That is the point of the project, according to Pine Tree Society spokeswoman Erin Rice.

"Pine Tree Camp is committed to offering Maine children and adults with disabilities recreational facilities they otherwise couldn't experience," she said. "This is just one more (way) that we can offer our campers something that most of them have never been in -- a treehouse."

Volunteers have been working for weeks to clear brush and lay the foundation for a series of concrete piles that will help support the structure, which incorporates the trunks of several living trees and other supports from the ground. Area businesses have been contributing materials and labor to the site.

One volunteer, Dan Barbeau, was using a chain saw to cut down trees on the site on a recent sunny day. When the chain saw's whine subsided, he climbed up the side of the hill where the treehouse will be, pointing at the concrete piles that were sunk 5 feet in the ground and marks on the tree trunks where the decking will rest, 12 feet above the ground at their highest point.

Campers will negotiate the 80 feet of raised wooden walkways behind the safety of wheelchair-safe railings. The slant of the hill and position of a large boulder make it possible for the walkways to only climb a total of 24 inches, gaining distance from the ground as the hillside falls away below, Barbeau said.

"When we were brought up in the '50s, there wasn't much money, so treehouses were our entertainment," he said, sagging onto a mossy boulder and wiping the sweat from his forehead. "But these children with handicaps have never been up in one, so when we heard about it we jumped on it."

Keith Alexander, Nicholas' father, said he was glad of Pine Tree Camp's decision. As a single father, he struggles to find ways to improve his son's quality of life, and supporting the treehouse project was one way he could help do that for Nicholas and children like him across the state, Keith Alexander said.

"My son ... had fun down there. There's a good bunch of kids down there," he said, suddenly sounding teary on the phone. "And I can't wait to see their faces ... I just want to see it happen, and I want to help make it happen. I love my son right to pieces, and I want to do everything I can possibly do to help make him happy."

Joel Elliott -- 861-9252

jelliott@centralmaine.com

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