Boys’ Back Yard Tree Hideaway May Fall Before Adults’ Rules

In the posh community of Westlake Island, some industrious youngsters are learning that you can’t hide from pesky adults--even when your hideaway is high in the branches of an Oriental pine.

The Westlake Island Property Owners Assn. has ordered that a treehouse made of discarded boards and old sheets of plywood in Mary Jacobs’ back yard be torn down because it does not conform to the association’s rules.

“We don’t want to tear it down,” said a disheartened Matt Gephardt, 10, who lives a few blocks away from Jacobs’ home and helped build the treehouse with other neighborhood children. “I wouldn’t care if this was only something real small, but we spent almost a year on this.”

The association issued its order in a bluntly worded form letter, telling the kids to “please remove the piece of plywood in the rear tree” that serves as the fort’s roof. This, after the junior crew of of 10- and 12-year-olds had even honored a ban on construction before 7 a.m. and on weekends, doing work only in the afternoon and hammering as quietly as possible.

Jacobs’ neighborhood of $500,000 homes sits on an island in the middle of a man-made lake in the city of Westlake Village, located about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The residents association takes seriously--some say too seriously--its stated mission of maintaining a “community of which you may be proud.”

Waving a copy of the association’s architectural guidelines, Jacobs, who earlier fought the association over a hole her children dug in the front yard as a Jacuzzi, said angrily: “There’s nothing in here about treehouses. They’re making it up.”

Karyn Shaudis, chairwoman of the association’s architectural committee, acknowledged that the guidelines do not specifically address treehouses, but said that a general rule of the community is: “If it’s ugly and if it’s visible from the water, it’s going to have to go.”

Undeniably, the treehouse is both.

It is a structure only a kid--or his mother--could find inspiration in. Old boards perch precariously between the boughs of an Oriental pine, held in place by dozens of gnarled nails at each end.

Jacobs said she is unsure why the association decided to cite her for the treehouse. One neighbor’s son helped build the structure and another neighbor said she did not even know it was there.

“Oh, I didn’t even notice it,” Alberta Schott said.

As for the children erecting the hideaway, they said they will defy the order and continue construction. As a concession to the association’s order, the boys ripped out the fort’s plywood roof and left all other boards in place.

“We’re gonna keep building. They told us to take down the piece of plywood in the tree, but I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Gary Jacobs, 10, said with a smile.