Couple launch online petition to save their Florida treehouse

A Florida couple have been told by officials that they must dismantle their oceanfront treehouse, or face fines of more than £300 per day.

On their website, Cool Tree House, Lynn Tran and her husband Richard Hazen, tell how they built their treehouse, which they describe as "really just a dressed-up, glorified two-storey deck", on their property in Anna Maria Island in Florida. They spent more than £13,000 on the project, and say they sought Holmes Beach's permission before construction began.

The couple claim that they visited the city building department in 2011 to ask for a permit to build the treehouse, but an official said that a permit wasn't necessary. However, the official they spoke to is no longer with the department, and the new official says that the treehouse violates a number of building codes, including those that apply to hurricanes and structural safety.

While it's true that this isn't the average treehouse - it has three levels with glass walls and a staircase - the couple insist that they believed that they had permission to build.

They have now set up a petition to save their treehouse from destruction, and say that it was "built with love and creativity". They are aiming to get over 2500 signatures and have already had a great deal of media interest.

The couple say that their treehouse started out as a "simple happy do-it-yourself project", but now say that, even though the "end is uncertain" they say: "It is unthinkable for us to destroy a labour of love..."

Click on the image below to see some weird and wonderful treehouses...

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Click on the image below for to see some treehouse hotels...

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