Gone, that is, for Scottish author JK Rowling and her two younger children.
The woman behind the Harry Potter books, whose fortune is estimated at £560m, is planning a construction wonder costing up to £250,000 per child for her north Edinburgh garden.
She lives there with her husband, their two young children, and her teenage daughter from a previous marriage.
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Plans for the luxury tree houses, to be built by Tunbridge Wells-based tree house architects Blue Forest, bear a striking resemblance to the castle turrets of fictional Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Rowling's own brain-child.
They will be two storeys tall with conical roofs and bay windows, and be linked by a rope bridge.
Rowling's children, aged nine and seven, will be able to access their tree houses through tunnels in the garden, and escape them through a trap door and fireman's pole in one, and a spiral staircase or stainless steel slide in the other.
The tree houses have been designed to be out of sight.
Andy Payne, the managing director of Blue Forest, said: "Tree houses have always been a symbol of imagination and creativity."
Rowling bought a £1m house next door to her own home and has received planning permission to demolish it and extend her garden.
(NE)
