Indoor-outdoor trees

For the most part, I'm an outdoor gardener. We have a few succulents indoors but that's about it.

Now, though, I'm looking at houses and thinking about architecture. I'm wondering if anybody out there has experience with rooms that surround a specimen tree. Is it reasonable to design a house around a specimen tree that doesn't exist yet (i.e, that needs to be planted)? Or does the hoped-for specimen tend not to pan out, as with so many of my outdoor trees? Are there architects or builders that specialize in rooms like this? What are the implications for tree growth and access to water? Does the room need to be built on a platform that protects the soil? Are these rooms troublesome to maintain?

I'd also be interested to hear examples of famous houses that surround beautiful trees.

A little bit of searching turned up a couple of interesting links. Mitchell Joachim explains his vision for a house constructed from living ficus trees here. Freshome has a great roundup of cool treehouse designs here. But, in truth, these are much more ambitious ideas than those I'm asking about above. I don't want a house that is made out of a tree, I just want a house that incorporates a tree.