Flathead students craft backyard lookout

In April, one lucky family will win its own backyard fire lookout built by Flathead High School students.

Flathead High School drafting, interior design and Americorps students combined efforts for the third straight year to build the lookout playhouse, which will be raffled off at 1 p.m. April 7 to raise money for The Nurturing Center.

The project is an opportunity for students to stir up childhood dreams of the perfect playhouse. Last year, students built a castle fit for a royal family.

Before students brainstormed ideas, a special guest, Glacier National Park fire lookout Leif Haugen, talked to students about the design, functionality and history of fire lookouts.

Students set to work designing at the beginning of the year, and began construction in mid-December supervised by industrial arts teacher and Americorps supervisor Brock Anderson and family consumer science teacher Dianne Gronley.

Flathead seniors Seth Hall and Rutger Evans were working on the playhouse Tuesday to complete it before the weekend where it will be displayed at the Flathead Building Association Home and Garden Showcase.

It also will be on display at Kalispell Center Mall March 19 through April 7.

Stairs lead the way to the playhouse, elevated three feet above ground by a wood base to mimic the tall base of real fire lookouts. Anderson said there is an optional ramp to accommodate children with disabilities.

A catwalk wraps around the 8-by-8-foot playhouse, and there are 11 windows for 360-degree views. Evans said that it was modeled after lookout towers in Montana forests. One of the added luxuries of this lookout playhouse is electricity. Anderson said this is one of the features students said they would have liked in their childhood playhouses.

“Kids thought it would be kind of cool to have a campout and be able to watch movies with the whole family up in the playhouse,” Anderson said.

Junior Ryan Ek worked on putting in an electrical system, which includes two electrical outlets, a rewired Coleman lantern installed on the ceiling and a breaker box below the playhouse to bypass the system.

This is an opportunity for students to see blueprints and models created in class, turned into a completed final product, all while helping the community Anderson said.

“The kids are given a skill in this [drafting] class, they take that skill and give back to the community in a positive way,” Anderson said. “The kids take pride in their craftsmanship.”

Interior design students compiled color boards for decorating the playhouse interior. Color boards are collections of design elements such as fabric and color swatches in addition to photos of furniture styles. Gronley said the playhouse features storage benches with camouflage seat cushions and rocking chairs for a rustic cabin-like feel.

In addition to the playhouse, interior design students created a collapsible indoor tepee playhouse for people without backyards. Senior Brittany Ogle worked on the project by researching American Indian designs to paint on the canvas fabric. To light up the tepee at night, students hung a flashlight at the top.

“This has really been a team effort, a collaboration between departments, and it has been fun,” Gronley said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.