These Fantasy Playhouses From Alberta Will Blow Your Mind

Charmed Playhouses is the brainchild of Tyson Leavitt, who saw a void in the market when it came to high-end, luxury playhouses for children while working as a landscaper and building treehouses for clients. Teaming with his wife Audrey, an interior designer, he and his team create meticulously custom-made playhouses with whimsical fairytale touches.

One of the company’s most elaborate creations is this three-storey Peter Pan-inspired pirate ship, bursting with spectacular details – see the cannons? – and topped with a crow’s nest lookout tower.

Seen from the rear, the pirate-ship playhouse is a stunner designed to unlock a child’s imagination, and Leavitt says he enjoys working with clients to bring their visions to life. “Some love superheroes and some love princesses, and so when they give us that idea we really just try to understand what their idea is and then bring it to life in a way they would never have thought,” he said.

One of the company’s most popular playhouses is this round-doored beauty that looks like it would make a perfect home for a Hobbit from ‘Lord of the Rings’.

The interior of the round-door playhouse is a cozy little space that children can customize. “It’s a little bit like going back in time and decorating your dollhouse again, on a little bit bigger of a scale,” said Audrey Leavitt in an interview. “It’s so much fun because I know I’d like to go back in time and pretend like I’m a kid again sometimes, and so I love that nostalgic feeling that we get to bring to other families.”

This delightful fairytale castle boasts such details as Tudor-style latticed windows, stone facade, rough-hewn rounded wooden doors and, of course, a turret that kids can climb up to.

These two-level playhouse is the perfect solution for anyone who wants a backyard treehouse but doesn’t have an appropriately sized tree. Added to the playhouse are a railed balcony, chair swing and tube slide for easy (and fun!) exits.

Here’s what you get when you link two of the company’s playhouses together with a suspension bridge to create your very own backyard fun park.

A pirate-ship playhouse is the centre of this homemade water park, boasting a swing set and slide, designed to keep kids out of the house and engage in outdoor playtime.

If your child is more of the ‘Game of Thrones’ type, Charmed Playhouses has got it covered with this stone-covered castle that would be be right at home in any of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

It’s easy to imagine Snow White and her seven little pals bursting out of this charming cottage that’s like a fairytale come to life.

One of the company’s signature structures is Rapunzel’s Castle, a 27-foot-tall tower that was one of Charmed Playhouses’ first creations.

Rapunzel’s long ponytail dangles from the window of the castle. In an interview with ‘The National Post’, Leavitt marvelled at his company’s worldwide reach, with clients including NBA star Steph Curry and a theme park in China. “It’s crazy. . . . We’re in Lethbridge, Alberta. It’s a Prairie town, population of [about] 90,000 people, and here we’re building the most expensive and luxurious playhouses in probably all the world,” he said.

Remember the old nursery rhyme about the crooked man who walked a crooked mile? If he had a backyard playhouse, this would be it!

Not all of the company’s playhouses are of the fairytale variety, such as this two-storey playhouse with an entry that’s more impressive than many full-sized homes.

Charmed Playhouses also creates modern-looking playhouses such as this one, which includes a wraparound deck on the second level, a slide and even a covered carport for bicycle parking.

This “simply stunning take on a modern playhouse” is sleek and stylish enough for even the most sophisticated backyard.