Not in My Neighbor's Backyard

L.A. Times ^ | 10/25/05 | Martha Groves

[Millee]

The mansionization battle rustling the leaves of North Barrington Avenue is something new even for Brentwood.

It's a dispute not over a 12,000-square-foot neo-Tudor monster or a towering modernist cube, but over a backyard treehouse for an 18-month-old girl.

This being Brentwood, of course, the edifice at issue is no ordinary treehouse. When Les Firestein, a television producer, and his wife, Gwyn Lurie, a screenwriter, wanted to do something really special for their daughter, Sydney, they enlisted their friend Roderick Wolgamott Romero.

Romero is a renowned builder of elaborate treehouses for such celebrities as Sting and Donna Karan. His work can be found in the "fantasy gift" section of this year's Neiman Marcus holiday catalog. Beginning price: $50,000.

In the backyard of the Firestein-Lurie home, which sits on a tree-studded half-acre north of Sunset Boulevard, Romero and his buddies built a roughly 10-foot-by-10-foot structure of reclaimed wood, salvaged windows and vintage stained glass from Buenos Aires that would quicken the heart of any fun-loving child or parent.

[Physicist]

That really is a nice treehouse.

[quikdrw]

That's a great story. My boys, 8 & 6, watch out for each other, too. When one of them has some money, he always make sure his brother can get something, too.

[CommandoFrank]

Roderick Wolgamott Romero

"Wolgamott?........... nobody is ever named Wolgamott!

[reflecting]

Thanks for the story! "Give and it will be given back to you, pressed down, shaken together and running over".