Growing up in the bluegrass countryside of Kentucky, Ashley Harper Smith became obsessed with nature. “I was never happier than when I was in the woods, horseback riding with my sister,” she recalls.

With her busy schedule, she yearns for those idyllic days. “I’ve always had this dream of living in a tree house surrounded by woods and nature and horses,” she says.

“Build a theater around this,” the wife said to First Impressions Theme Theaters’ founder and theater designer Jeff Smith, as she handed him a sample of animal-print carpeting.