Up a Tree : Neighbors Say Boy’s $3,200 Aerie Blocks View and Must Come Down; City to Decide

LAGUNA BEACH — It may have a balcony, a skylight and an ocean view, but the $3,200 structure perched upon two eucalyptus trees behind their home is still just a treehouse, say Lewis and Linda Castillo, a birthday present for their little boy, Andrew.

But Andrew’s treehouse is anything but a cute play home to the Castillos’ neighbor, Geo Moskios, who filed a complaint with the city, saying it obscured his view and infringed on his privacy.

As a result, the city told the Castillos to get Design Review Board approval for the structure or dismantle it. The Castillos dragged their feet, they now admit, and the city attorney took them to court, where they were ordered to seek a city permit.

So judgment day approaches for 10-year-old Andrew’s al fresco luxury home. Next week, the Castillos will appear before the review board, a panel that will chart new regulatory territory as it considers, for the first time, the fate of a wooden fort.

“I think the whole thing is pretty silly,” Linda Castillo said. “I mean, a child’s treehouse?”

But such matters are serious business in this eccentric coastal community that is almost as legendary for its zoning squabbles as for its artist’s colony.

“I had the city attorney take them into court because they were not complying,” said Dee Dillon, the city’s code enforcement officer. “They were not coming into design review or removing it.”

The stakes are also high for some neighbors, such as Moskios, a yoga instructor who filed the complaint two years ago. He said the ocean view young Andrew now enjoys once belonged to him.

“My wife and I used to be able to sit here at our dining room table and have our breakfast in the morning and look out through those trees and see that view,” he said.

“If you look in that treehouse, you can look right in my house,” he added. “There’s a major privacy issue here.”

Design review controversies are nothing new for Laguna Beach, a city that in 1991 temporarily barred a couple from moving into their new home because it was painted a whiter shade than had been agreed upon by the couple and the review board.

After that highly publicized incident, the board refused to grant another couple approval to build a new home, in part because it would have cast a shadow on an existing residence.

And another time, the city’s review board refused to let a woman keep a picket fence that was six inches too high. In that case, however, the City Council overruled the board’s decision.

The latest controversy centers on the upscale playhouse the Castillos had built for Andrew’s sixth birthday. Ten feet long and five feet wide, the structure is about eight feet tall at the tip of its pitched roof.

The fort is secured between two towering eucalyptus trees with ropes, so the trees would not have to be speared with nails. The Castillos maintain that the structure will not fit properly into any other tree in their back yard.

The family has at least one defender, Michael Beanan, the craftsman who built the treehouse.

In a letter to the city, Beanan said the claim that the treehouse blocks anybody’s view is “unfair and unwarranted” because it is nestled in mature trees that already obscure the scenery.

“You mention view in this town and everything stops,” said Linda Castillo. She said Andrew would have to be a contortionist to lean around the treehouse balcony and peer into the neighbor’s back yard.

But city officials say the complaints cannot be dismissed, partly because the treehouse is an “accessory structure” that must win design review approval to stay, according to Dillon.

“Any separate structure has to have design review approval,” she said, noting that this is the first time somebody has complained to the city about a treehouse.

Dillon said she does not expect the structure to receive any special consideration from the board simply because it is located in a tree. And, since it is in a set-back area at the rear of the back yard, it also will require a variance, she said.

The Castillos say they met with Moskios but that a tentative agreement between the parties dissolved when another neighbor also complained about the fort, saying it also infringed upon his privacy.

Meanwhile, Andrew is still playing in his treehouse.

As far as he’s concerned, the cool thing about the fort is that he can go there with his pals to watch birds, eat pizza, lob rocks at trees and talk.

“We like bird watching and stuff because there’s a hawk’s nest right above it,” he said. “I really like it up there. . . . I just wouldn’t want it to come down.”