The ultimate birdhouse: Huge cedar wood mansion comes with 103 'luxury' rooms, fly-by tunnels and even a swimming pool
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:01 PM on 1st February 2011
More after the break............
This hotel is the height of luxury - if you're a bird. Complete with 103 rooms and a 'swimming pool', it is constructed from cedar wood and scales an amazing nine feet in height.
The birdbox de luxe also boasts Victorian architecture and fly-by tunnels, the brainchild of a former builder.
John Loose, 46, has been making the specialist accommodation for our feathered friends for five years now and has a range which can set bird-lovers back anywhere between £1,000 and £15,000.
The one above, decorated with the Canadian flag, is the Toronto specialist's most impressive yet. But all his creations have proved a big hit, attracting huge flocks of starlings, sparrows and other birds seeking warmth away from the winter chill.
Mr Looser, from Toronto, said since he created his first bird mansion five years ago people have been flocking to get one themselves. He retired after 20 years through injury but regularly gets orders for his creations from everywhere from the UK to Australia.
Mr Looser, who was a builder of human houses before retiring after 20 years, said he had orders for his creations from everywhere from the UK to Australia
'I build them in my kitchen from scratch, at first using wood from an old barn but now using cedar wood.
'The first ones I made I kept to myself, the birds love them, especially the sparrows and blue martins. They are warm and high enough off the ground so they don't get any trouble.
'The biggest one I have built has 103 rooms, 32 dormer windows and is nine feet by nine feet. It also has a purpose-built fly-through tunnel in the middle, which the birds seem to really love.'
John said watching the birds using his mansions was the greatest compliment of his work he could have.
He said: 'There are birds living in them right now, I have even seen mums bringing up their chicks in them.
'Watching the birds has also helped me adapt them to make the mansions better. One day I saw them playing in a puddle that had formed on one of them.
'The next one I built I added a swimming pool in the roof and they haven't stopped using it.
'My inspiration for the much of the architecture is the Victorian age and I love European architecture. In the future I'd like to do a replica of some of the great buildings you have in England.'
John said that demand for the mansions meant that he was in talks to hopefully produce flat-pack versions so that bird lovers could recreate his work.