Cedar Hollow Dorset
Dazzle Treehouse
Part ship, part treehouse, entirely itself. Built over a stream and painted in first-world-war dazzle camouflage, so the woodland never quite tells you where it ends.
A gangplank takes you aboard. Below the prow-shaped deck a stream runs through the alders, and slung over it is a cargo net you can lie on and watch the water go past.
- Sleeps
- 2 adults
- Bed
- One king-sized bed
- Bathroom
- En-suite shower room with flushing loo
- Outside
- Circular hot tub, wood-fired pizza oven, fire pit, hammock, cargo net over the stream
- Built
- 2020, by Guy Mallinson and team
- Awarded
- RIBA South West, 2023
A ship in the trees
Dazzle takes its name and its paintwork from the disruptive camouflage the Royal Navy used on merchant ships in 1917 — not to hide a vessel, but to make its size and heading impossible to read. Applied to a building in a wood, the effect is much the same. You lose the outline of it among the trunks until you are almost at the gangplank.
The nautical joke runs all the way through: funnels on the roof, yacht-deck floors underfoot, a prow of a deck pointing out over the water. What stops it becoming a theme is the central glass spine running the length of the building, which fills the whole interior with leaf-light and keeps the canopy overhead in view from every room.
Over the stream
Dazzle is the only one of the three built over running water. The cargo-net day bed is suspended above it — an hour on that net with a book is the thing guests write to us about most often. The hot tub sits on the rear deck, the pizza oven and fire pit are a few steps away, and a hammock hangs between them.
Inside, a ceramic wood-burning stove is set between the sitting room and the bedroom so it warms both at once. There is a proper kitchen, a Nespresso machine, and a shower room with a flushing loo and a heated towel rail.
Inside
- King-sized bed with dual-control electric blanket
- Ceramic wood-burning stove between the two rooms
- Separate sitting room
- En-suite shower room and flushing loo
- Heated towel rail
- Fully equipped kitchen with appliances
- Nespresso machine
- Central glass spine to the canopy
- Mains water, drinkable, and on-demand hot water
- Mains electricity with USB sockets by the bed
- Dyson hair dryer and cooling fan
- Books, games and no wifi
Outside
- Circular hot tub on the rear deck
- Cargo-net day bed over the stream
- Wood-fired pizza oven
- Fire pit and barbecue
- Hammock
- Prow deck over the water
- Gangplank approach
- Logs, kindling and firelighters supplied
- 4G signal throughout
Dazzle in pictures
Two adults only, 18 and over. No children and no dogs. Self-catering. Arrival from 4pm, departure by 10am, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Five minutes’ walk downhill from the car park.
Come aboard
Dazzle sleeps two, over a stream, with the canopy overhead and a cargo net to spend the afternoon on.