INTERVIEW: Animal Planet’s Pete Nelson is ready for more treehouses

Pete Nelson, the star of Animal Planet’s Treehouse Masters, is a man bounding with energy for his chosen profession. He not only loves to build intricate treehouses decked out with modern luxuries, he also loves putting smiles on the faces of his many clients. His successful reality series returns Friday, Jan. 15 at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet.

“It’s really an amazing dream come true,” Nelson said recently during a phone interview. “I remember it was the late ‘80s, and … I couldn’t go to sleep. I was so excited about maybe becoming America’s first treehouse builder, like serious treehouse professional. And it took a long, long time to get here, but it’s happened after, what is that, 28 years ago now. And it’s awesome. It’s just the greatest thing. I mean there’s a long list of people that want treehouses. I wish I could get to every one of them. It wasn’t that way a few short years ago. I can assure you.”

Nelson’s creations are top-of-the-line constructions that can cost a lot of money. However, his business tries to balance the desires of a variety of clients. “We try to make a balance of it because absolutely these are luxury items that the price tags on these can easily go over $200,000, and obviously that’s not something that everybody can do now,” he said. “We come from some humble roots in building these. I mean we put treehouses together for $10,000 and even less sometimes, especially in the early days. … So we do try to balance between the very wealthy client and then some of the others that are really stretching to afford the dream of a treehouse.”

The Jan. 15 episode will focus on a treehouse construction in Texas, approximately 100 miles west of San Antonio. “I hadn’t spent any time out there in my life, but that’s one of the great parts about traveling this beautiful, beautiful country, and finding these places and just thinking, I could live there,” he said. “It’s just so pretty. They’ve got these gin-clear streams, and small rivers that run through that Texas limestone and just this beautiful shade of blue-green in the waters, and then out of the riverbed these enormous cypress trees grow.”

Nelson called the treehouse on this first episode a “big, Texas-sized treehouse” with a bridge that stretches quite far. “I mean I’m proud of it,” he said. “I can’t wait to share it with our fans.”

After Texas, Nelson and his team travel around the country and encounter some interesting building challenges on the road. The TV personality said the best part of the job are the people he gets to work with. “We get to meet the kind of people that just really insist on building their dreams, and it’s always a pleasure to work with people like that because they’re going to take the bull by the horns and see their dreams through,” he said. “So we get to be that conduit to make it happen, and it’s just always fun.”

One of the last shows on the new season will return to Texas, and that’s where Nelson was conducting the interview from. He commented on the stressful aspects of the jobs as well. Sometimes the permits can take a long time, and projects can languish for months, sometimes for more than a year. Plus, there are the demands of shooting the episodes for Animal Planet.

“I was driving out here just a few weeks ago to meet the clients and hope that we could do something, and again … [there are] these sort of pressure situations where you’ve got to get something cooking to make sure that we meet our episode obligations with Animal Planet,” he said. “Well, it always seems to work out.”

One project, for example, required a special permit to build in the floodway of a river. “Once we understood what we needed, it didn’t take too long,” he said. “But, yeah, I mean that one was in the process for about a year before we were able to build it, but … the actual build took five weeks to fabricate a lot of the shop. And then we build like mad, and the production company likes to see us done in usually two-and-a-half or three weeks from beginning to end, not including the pre-construction and our shop.”

He added: “We’ll work crazy hours to do them, but we’re building treehouses. So we love it.”

When Treehouse Masters began its successful run on Animal Planet, Nelson didn’t realize he would be the focus of the show. “I decided I’d just jump in with both feet and figured it was about the treehouses and the whole crew,” he said. “I think I’ve loosened up a bit because I love the joyfulness of treehouses, and I don’t want to lose sight of that. We get wrapped around the axle [on] all of the engineering and the permitting side, which is never fun on any project, and the dollars and the cents of it all is a tough thing in any business. But the joy and that spirit is what drives me. It never gets old. You can get out in the woods and see something new, and they’re always different. There’s not one that’s the same, and you get excited. That builder in me … it really is genuine, and I love that I get to do this. I really do.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Treehouse Masters returns Friday, Jan. 15 at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet. Click here for more information.