(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 this (Tues.) morning for the county to contribute $1,000 to support a Community Attraction and Tourism, or CAT Grant, the Pearson Lakes Art Center is applying for. Bob Kirschbaum, Director the of PLAC, told the supervisors the grant funds, along with money from a major donor, would go toward the construction of a tree house educational facility that would be built in conjunction with the Tree House Master’s television program…
“We contacted Tree House Masters and of course when you contact them you fill out this thing online, you send it off, you get a reply back, somebody may get back to you, you know, in a time period. Well surprisingly, in two days we had a response. We had a conference call, they wanted to get together and talk, they said we’re definitely interested, they flew out here.”
Kirschbaum says the crew identified a site on a hill on the sculpture trail, just west of the PLAC…
“Their proposal was, we put the tree house up on that hill. To go in the tree house, there will be just a slight ramp to walk into the tree house, because you’re basically on that hill. You’re walking into it on ground level, but by the time you’re at the end of the tree house, you’re 20 feet up into the trees. There’s a couple of old oak trees out there they estimated to be about 225 years old, so you’ll walk in right under the canopy of those trees.”
Kirschbaum says the tree house educational facility will offer a number of amenities, and will be an attraction unlike anything else in the Iowa Great Lakes…
“It will have a classroom that we can have up to 20 people in the classroom teaching art classes and community type classes. The art center would probably have four different pillars: we have culinary arts, we’ll be able to do culinary arts classes out there. We’ll be able to do arts education out there. We’ll be able to have artisans residency out there. We can close off, there will be a gate that we’ll be able to close off so we can make it that we can close off the classroom.”
Provided they’re successful in getting the needed funds, Kirschbaum says construction would likely start in the fall of 2027. He says it would take 2 to 3 months to complete the project. He says local contractors would also be involved.
