The Gethsemane Olive Tree Sold out

Real olive trees die indoors. This one doesn’t.

Six feet ten inches of Mediterranean olive, molded from a real trunk and finished by hand. It holds a full silver canopy in the darkest corner of the room, through every season you forget it is there.

$249 USD 6 ft 10 in · one size

Notify me when it lands See it up close

Scroll Ships flatStands in ten minutesNo water, no light

The six-inch test

Anything looks real from across the room.

A faux tree is judged from six inches away, not six feet. That is where the plastic shine shows, where the seams show, where every leaf faces the same direction. We built this one to survive being looked at closely.

Matte silver-sage olive foliage — 01The foliageMatte, dual-tone, silvered underneath. A few real olives, not a hundred.

Weathered bark cast from a real olive trunk — 02The barkCast from a living olive, so the cracking and veining are a real tree’s.

Weighted limestone-composite pot — 03The potWeighted limestone composite. The pot you would have bought anyway.

Scale

Six feet ten, drawn to size.

The most common thing people get wrong about a floor tree is how much room it asks for. So here it is next to a door and a person, at true proportion.

Taller than your doorA standard interior door is 6 ft 8 in. The tree clears it by two inches, which is why it ships in three pieces.

About four feet acrossThe canopy spreads roughly 4 ft at its widest. Give it a corner, not a hallway.

Wants an 8 ft ceilingUnder that it still fits, but it reads as filling the room rather than sitting in it.

The honest comparison

What it actually costs to keep a tree in the corner.

We would rather tell you what the alternatives cost than pretend they do not exist. Three of these are reasonable choices. One of them is ours.

A real olive tree

$150 to $400

Wants six hours of direct sun, which most rooms do not have. Drops leaves by the second month, and usually does not survive its first winter inside. Beautiful for a season, then a project.

A sixty-dollar faux tree

$60 to $90

Plastic shine under a lamp, leaves that all face one way, a trunk that shifts when you walk past, and a black nursery pot you replace immediately for another forty dollars.

A designer floor tree

$600 to $1,200

Often made in the same factories as everything else in this list. You are largely paying for the showroom, the catalogue and the delivery window.

Ours

The Gethsemane Olive Tree

$249

Molded from a real trunk, matte dual-tone canopy, weighted stone pot, three-piece construction that ships flat. Set it once and it is still standing in ten years.

The olive tree beside a staircase in a bright hallway

It should look like it has always been there.

The whole brief, in one line

Why faux, honestly

We are not pretending it grew.

A faux tree is not a compromise if it is built properly. It is the version of a plant that fits how people actually live: rented rooms, north-facing windows, two weeks away in August.

No water, no light

It stays full and green in a corner that gets nothing, through every season you forget it is there.

Still here in ten years

Matte, dual-tone foliage that will not shine, fade or shed. It outlasts a few apartments.

Arrives flat, stands in ten minutes

A three-piece trunk in a compact box. No tools, no soil, nothing to sweep up afterwards.

Made with intent

Every part specified on its own.

The canopy, the trunk and the pot were each drawn up separately, then built to sit together in one room. Nothing here came off a shelf as a set.

01 THE CANOPY

Silver-sage, and deliberately sparse

Narrow leaves in a dull olive-green, silvered underneath, with a few realistic olives. Open enough that light moves through the branches instead of stopping at a wall of green.

02 THE TRUNK

Cast from a real olive

Molded from ancient gnarled bark and hand-painted in ash-gray and limestone. Matte and weathered, with the veining and fine cracking of a tree that has been standing a long time.

03 THE POT

Limestone, weighted low

A warm off-white stone-composite vessel with taupe veining and a weighted base, so a dog going past does not take it down. Moss and pale pebbles at the soil line.

The name

Named for the garden.

Gethsemane comes from the Aramaic Gath-Shmanē, the oil press. It is the name of an old grove of olives at the foot of the Mount of Olives, the place people have gone for two thousand years to sit with something heavy. Several of those trees are still alive.

An olive gives nothing back for years. It grows slowly, holds on through drought, and keeps producing long after everything planted around it is gone. That is why it has stood for peace and endurance for as long as anyone has been writing things down.

A place where strength was forged under pressure, and peace was found in stillness.

We did not name it after a garden to sell more trees. We named it because that is what we wanted standing in the corner of the room.

Who it is for

Some rooms need something that stays.

Most of the reasons people buy a seven-foot tree have very little to do with plants.

The olive tree beside a sofa in a quiet living room

A tree is one of the few things you can give someone that does not need looking after, does not go off, and is still in the corner of the room years later.

That is a strange thing to discover about a product you set out to design as furniture. It has changed who we think this is for.

A first place

The piece that makes an empty rental read as somebody’s home, without a lease-breaking hole in a wall.

A house just closed on

A housewarming gift that is still in the corner of the living room in five years, and everyone knows who gave it.

A hard year

For the friend who does not need flowers that are dead in a week. Given what the name means, this one tends to say it better.

A room that never worked

The tall empty corner beside the sofa. Six feet ten fixes it in one delivery.

Specification

The details

Overall height6 ft 10 in / 208 cm

Construction3-piece modular

TrunkMolded PU + natural wood branches

FoliageDual-tone matte, no shedding

PotWeighted limestone composite

AssemblyClick-lock, sets up in minutes

UseIndoor

CareDust occasionally, that’s it

Before you buy

The real questions

Where do you ship, and what does it cost?

We ship within the United States, and every price on this site is in US dollars. Standard shipping is free and arrives in 20 to 30 days. Express is $49 and arrives in 7 to 14 days. We are not shipping outside the US yet, so if you are reading this from somewhere else, join the list and we will tell you when that changes.

When will it be back in stock?

Our first production run is being made now. Join the list above and you will hear from us before anyone else, with a date as soon as we have one from the factory. We would rather tell you late than tell you wrong.

Will people be able to tell it is not real?

From across the room, no. From six inches, someone looking for it will work it out, and we would rather say that than promise otherwise. What gives most faux trees away is shine, uniform leaves and a plastic trunk. We spent the money on those three things: a matte dual-tone canopy, leaves set at varied angles, and bark cast from a living olive.

How big is six feet ten really?

Taller than a standard interior door, and it wants a ceiling of eight feet or more to sit properly. The canopy spreads roughly four feet at its widest. If your ceilings are under eight feet, it will still fit, but it will read as filling the room rather than sitting in it.

Will it arrive damaged?

It ships flat as three trunk sections with the branches folded, which is far more survivable than a pre-built tree in a tall box. If it does arrive damaged, message us before you start a return and we will replace the part rather than make you box the whole thing up.

Does it need shaping when it arrives?

Yes, and this is the step people skip. Branches are compressed for transit and need bending out. It takes about ten minutes. Cotton gloves and a shaping guide come in the box, because a tree that has not been shaped is the single most common reason a faux tree looks fake.

Is it safe around pets and children?

There is no water, no soil and nothing to knock over onto a rug. The pot is weighted low, so it takes a real shove to move it. The leaves are not edible, but they are not toxic either.

Will the leaves fade by a window?

The foliage is UV-stable and rated for indoor use, including a bright south-facing room. It is not made for a balcony or a covered patio, and we will not pretend otherwise.

The MAERA promise

Delivered right, or we make it right.

We are new. You have not heard of us, there is no shelf of reviews to read, and I am aware that is a lot to ask for a piece of furniture you cannot touch first.

So here is the deal. Every tree ships with cotton styling gloves and a shaping guide. If it turns up damaged, or the shaping is not sitting right, reach us before you return it and we will sort it out, usually by sending the part rather than making you repack a seven-foot box. Thirty days, and the return is free either way.

SharonFounder, MAERA

The first run is nearly here.

We are making a limited first production run. Leave your email and we will tell you the moment it lands, before it goes anywhere else.

The Gethsemane Olive Tree Sold out · join the list for the next run

Notify me when it lands