Swiss Family Treehouse Articles

The delightful Swiss Family Treehouse was a clever addition to the northern border where guests round the corner from Adventureland to Frontierland the treehouse took its design and decor from the Swiss Family Robinson movie sets and props which included items salvaged from the Robinsons sinking ship and homemade creations fashioned from jungle materials.The treehouse included a library, kitchen, private rooms and viewing platforms all of it furnished and functional and all of it toured via hundred thirty-nine steps of wooden stairways. Most memorable was an ingenious water delivery system that lifted hundreds of gallons of water per hour to the upper levels using pulleys bamboo dippers and bamboo shoots throughout the tour a likely Buddy Baker composition from the movie The Swiss Polka was a buoyant theme song

Almost as impressive as the treehouse was the tree it sprawled across playfully named a Disneyodendron semperflorens grandis big ever-blooming Disney tree by its designers the mass of steel and concrete structure rose 70 ft over the jungle and spread brilliant colored branches 80 feet in width.These stats reveal that the trees width was greater than its above-ground height, but unmentioned was the depth of the foundation roots which drove another 42 ft downward and helped give the whole structure total weight of 150 tons.

The 300,000 leaves that adorn the tree were artificial and reddish in color until they faded in the harsh sun and were replaced by green plastic instead. True to the Robertson's Heritage a Swiss flag flew from the top of the tree. The treehouse had a clever and functional plumbing system. A water wheel drives a continuous supply of scoops, lifting 200 clean, gallons of water per hour high into the tree. The water dumps into a system of bamboo gutters and use gravity to provide running water to every room.

Start by touring the kitchen and library on the ground floor. You do not mind climbing stairs, do you? Count the steps. There are 68 going up, but 69 coming down. This is not just an attraction; it is an exercise apparatus too.As you ascend and descend, there might be an extra bounce to your step as you hear the catchy theme tune, the "Swisskapolka" Take a look into the rooms of the shipwrecked family. Pick your favorite the one where you could imagine yourself living.No matter which room you pick, you get elegant furnishings salvaged from the ship, along with some terrific views.A hand painted sign in the jungle lookout says "In this compound we often pause to contemplate our small world. Here adventure beckons with every view & every sound, the jungle and its river, call out their mystery invite us to a new discovery."

Cost $254,000 to build that would be over $2.5 million in 2022 dollars.Amount of water circulated by bamboo buckets: approx. 200 gallons per hour. Amount of water circulated in the treehouse: 4,000 gallons per minute. Stream Length: 160 feet. Ground breaking January 17,1962,Opening Day: December, 1962,

The tree in which the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse resides is called a Disneyodendron Exiums, which means: out of the ordinary Disney tree, so dubbed by the Imagineers who built her. It is classified as a building, so is subject to the same safety and building codes as all of the other structures in Disneyland. Also, the tree contains 300,000 fabricated leaves, which each cost $1 to produce! The tree has concrete roots that stick 42 feet into the ground, and a steel superstructure.

Statistics:
Opening Day: December, 1962 (ground breaking January 17,1962)
Number of Leaves: 300,000 (hand made vinyl)
Number of Blooms: 50,000
Number of Steps: 137 total - 68 going up, 69 going down
Tree Height: Approx. 70 feet
Tree Width: 80 feet (at its widest point)
Tree Weight: 150 tons
Root Depth: 40 feet
Amount of Water Circulated by Bamboo Buckets: Approx. 200 gallons per hour
Amount of Water Circulated in the Treehouse: 4,000 gallons per minute.
Stream Length: 160 feet

Hand painted sign in the Jungle Lookout: "In this compound we often pause to contemplate our small world. Here adventure beckons with every view & every sound, the jungle & its river call out their mystery invite us to new discovery"

Cost $254,000 (in 2021 dollars it would cost over $2.3 million) to build

Required a "C" ticket in 1964-1965

From WED Disneyland Dictionary 1968
Rises 70 feet above the jungle. The tree spreads more than 300,000 brilliant leaves and 50,000 blooms on its 40-foot branches. As guests climb steps rough-hewn by island castaways, they visit the primitive kitchen, salon and bedrooms to become a part of the fabled adventures of the shipwrecked family. Rare antique furnishings, a jungle water circulation system and a spectacular view of the "Magic Kingdom" are other features of the visit in the ingenious island home, devised and constructed by the world's most famous family of castaways --the Robinsons.

Required a "B" ticket in 1970's

From Steve Birnbaum brings you the best of Disneyland 1982:
The Disney studios' 1960 remake of the 1813 Johann David Wyss classic novel, The Swiss Family Robinson, provided the inspiration for what must be one of the two best treehouses on earth (the other being this same attraction at Walt Disney World in Florida). It's well fitted out with real antiques (muskets, an 18th-century barometer, a ship's wheel and gimbal lights, and a sewing basket), and with an organ, beds, tables, and bookshelves built by Disney arti- sans. It even has running water in all the rooms- thanks to a waterwheel at the base of the tree, a rushing brook, and a series of bamboo buckets on pulleys capable of bringing up about 200 gallons an hour. "Everything we need right at our fingertips," was how John Mills, who played the father in the film, described the prototype for this arboreal home, which he and two of his three sons had built after the wreck of the Titus on its way to America. It's such an ingenious construction that it's not hard to understand why, several adventures later when they got the chance to leave the island, all the family members except one son decided to stay on. Unofficially christened Disneyodendron semperflorens grandis (that is, "large everblooming Disney tree"), the tree itself is another intriguing bit of Disney artifice. The 62 roots, which reach 42 feet into the ground, are made of concrete; the limbs, which extend 80 feet across, are of steel; and the more than 300,000 leaves, shaped like those of a ban- yan tree and hand-grafted onto 1,000 manzanita branches ranging in length from 2 to 6 feet, are pure plastic. The whole assemblage weighs some 150 tons (6 tons of it steel); uses 110 cubic yards of concrete; and towers 70 feet in the air, high above the rest of Adventureland. Fluttering at the top-visible from almost everywhere in the park- is the Swiss national flag.