Customer Corner

Meet Sabre Schnitzer. He and his wife served in the marines, so they’d been travelling for 20 years before they were able to move home to Manassas, Virginia. 2 years ago, Sabre promised his daughters he’d build them a treehouse. “I have 2 girls, and I’m not the kind of father who can ever say no.”

Today, his girls have the coolest hangout in the neighborhood.

Sabre didn't just build a treehouse, he built an outdoor adventure-land for his two girls. His project is so massive that he has categorized them into phases. His first phase took him 2 months to build in the Virginia summer heat. It’s a small treehouse, raised about 5 feet off the ground, complete with electricity, internet, AC/heat, an ADT security system, and cable. 

And that was just phase 1.

Sabre still was itching to build, so he built a platform. He used our three-point connection, tabs, and braces. He says the biggest challenge of this platform was executing a series of one-off cuts, as he built it by himself. “Trying to climb up into the structure to make those one-off cuts in 85 degree heat and humidity was tough,” he says.

Another platform later, and Sabre was itching to build a rope bridge. So he bought all the green and yellow rope he could find, and built the bridge.

But Sabre wasn’t done yet. He wanted to build another platform. One of his neighbors suggested he make it an outdoor theatre. So Sabre built it to the dimensions of a projection screen, and got to work. He says, “The two platforms and theatre are based on your TABs and TAB attachments. Without those things it would have never been possible.”

Before long, he had the theatre built, and a rope bridge to connect it to the platforms he’d already built. He estimates that he tied around 8,000 knots at one knot per minute to construct the bridge.     

Now, Sabre’s girls have 14-18 friends over for Friday night movie night. The theatre even has a phone and a cable trolley, so if the kids need more cookies or snacks, they just call the main house, and Sabre or his wife sends reinforcements via the cable trolley. They call it the Cookie Delivery System, or CDS. 

We asked Sabre why he does it. He said for him, it’s all about his daughters.

“When my wife spit out two daughters, I was like great, no one’s gonna touch you till you’re 35,” he laughs. “It’s all about them: making sure they had the right childhood and the right services available to bring friends over and have awesome sleepovers and parties,” he says. “It’s one thing to play inside, but when you can play outside, why not?” We couldn’t agree more.

Sabre gets to enjoy his hard work, too. He works from home, and when he needs a change of atmosphere, he’ll go out to the treehouse and do his work there, since it has wifi.

Ultimately, Sabre says it’s all about giving his kids  “a kind creation that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Great summers, and great memories.” He says he’s always trying to secure the ‘father of the year award.’ We think he’s quite the contender.