Tree House Ad Imitates Life (With a Sad Ending)

Zillow has been running their “Family Search” TV spot (YouTube.com, 5.12.14) and the family, and ultimately, kid, at the end, end up finding their perfect home and falling in instant comfort and love with the ultra cool treehouse in the backyard.

After seeing that spot a couple of times I saw an article in the Minneapolis City Pages about a kid’s treehouse that is most likely going to be torn down due to neighbors’ complaints and a subsequent look into zoning violations.

In a letter to the city of Minneapolis, the father says that the treehouse was built because “The move was somewhat traumatic for our son Daniel who had just finally settled into his school in Chicago at that time. When we were looking at the house we eventually bought … I somewhat rashly said that if we bought the house then we would build a treehouse — something he had always wanted.”

In a separate letter handwritten by Daniel, he says, “[The treehouse] still has years of fun left in it” (City Pages, 9.10.14).

Could we get Zillow behind a campaign to keep Daniel’s treehouse up?