A new family has moved into the Disneyland treehouse that has been under renovation in Adventureland for the past two years and they’re planning an open house to show off the extreme makeover that’s sure to attract a crowd.
Walt Disney Imagineering’s Kim Irvine offered a pre-dawn tour of the Adventureland Treehouse inspired by Walt Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson on Friday, Nov. 3 during a media preview of the renovated Disneyland attraction that opens to visitors on Nov. 10.
It’s best not to think too hard about the backstory for the refreshed Adventureland Treehouse at Disneyland and just enjoy the creative décor in the outdoor treetop rooms and the spectacular views of the Rivers of America and the rest of the Anaheim theme park.
You’d be forgiven if you thought the family living in the treehouse was once again the Robinsons from the 1960 Disney film. The nameless family of five is not the Robinsons marooned on an uninhabited island — but rather a creative bunch who just happen to like living in a treehouse in Adventureland.
The pet ostrich (Jane) who lives near the kitchen and the pet monkey (Rascal) in the boys’ room have names, but the father, mother, daughter and twin sons do not.
Dad is an inventor who does all the cooking. Mom is a music lover with a collection of magical instruments. The girl loves the stars and has a great spot to watch the night sky. And the nature loving twin boys have a menagerie of exotic plants and jungle animals.
The lineage of the family tree is far less important than the eclectic environs of the Adventureland Treehouse.
The centerpiece is once again a water wheel that carries water to every level of the treehouse and adds a burst of kinetic motion to every room. The Disney Archives had the original water wheel from the 1960s Disneyland treehouse sitting in a warehouse. Garner Holt Productions in Redlands was able to take the pieces and create molds to replicate the original Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse water wheel.
“It’s really exactly like the original water wheel with a few enhancements,” Irvine said.
The water wheel is fed by a gurgling creek that runs beneath walkways and around the base of the tree.
“Our story is that everything that the family has created actually runs off of this mystical water that’s running underneath the tree from some spring that the water wheel brings up into the rooms and takes through all the different bamboo pipes to the different cisterns,” Irvine said. “That’s how they run all of the little pieces of magic in each room.”
The inventor father has automated everything in the kitchen with pots that stir themselves.
“He’s kind of a renaissance man that knows how to do all kinds of things,” Irvine said. “So he’s put together a whole workshop with a potter’s wheel and lathes and all the things that he can help the rest of the family make their dreams come true in their rooms.”
The mother’s magical music parlor is filled with a player organ and an animated violin that play by themselves. “Swisskapolka” from the original Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse plays on a constant loop that is almost as hard to get out of your head as “It’s a Small World.”
“If you wonder where mom sleeps, her loft is up here,” said Irvine, pointing to a niche above the music room. “There’s a ladder that she climbs to go up.”
Ostrich eggs the size of cantaloupes appear throughout the treehouse — as do “Easter eggs” that pay tribute to past inhabitants. Mother is reading the “Tarzan of the Apes” novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs and the “Swiss Family Robinson” novel by Johann David Wyss sits on a bookshelf.
The daughter’s observatory is filled with telescopes made of old barrels and models of the solar system made from gourds. She corresponds with an astronomer from the Society of Explorers and Adventurers — an alternate reality where Disney characters exist in Disney theme park lands.
“On the desk is a little letter from the S.E.A. member that sent her a lens for one of the telescopes,” Irvine said.
The twin sons share a room filled with monkeys, toucans and man-eating plants.
“They’re about 8 years old in my mind,” Irvine said. “They are both nature lovers. They can’t believe that they live in this tree. One collects animals and one collects all the weird plants that they can find out in the jungle.”
Like all the other rooms, the twins’ bedroom is covered by cargo netting — which is designed to keep Disneyland visitors out, but looks like a tight space for two energetic young boys.
