SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ENTERPRISE : Adjustable Heel Pumps Shoe Sales : Innovation: Rose-Lee partners find themselves busy filling orders for their aerospace engineer-designed footwear.

Talk about an idea with legs--or maybe feet.

Beverly Hills orthopedic surgeon Fred Swerdloff and his nurse-practitioner, Rose Lewis, saw an endless parade of limping patients whose back, knee and ankle pain could be blamed on a single source: high-heeled shoes.

So Swerdloff and Lewis performed surgery on the standard fashion pump and came up with an unusual idea. They designed a shoe with a heel that can change height.

Rose-Lee Beverly Hills Shoes, which debuted at a New York shoe show in June, are only a tiny kick in the pants for the tightly laced shoe industry. But the quick-stepping response from retailers who think Rose-Lee has nailed a shoe-wearer’s dream has sent the small company racing to fill orders for the holiday season and is keeping its owners on their--well, you get the idea.

“It’s been very exciting,” said Lewis, who tested every prototype on her own Size 7 1/2 feet. “I knew women would want these. . . . I always see these women walking down the street wearing beautiful suits with tennis shoes, and it looks ridiculous.”

“I don’t look at this from a fashion standpoint; I consider it a medical device,” said Swerdloff, whose day job ministering to orthopedic problems has helped pay the bills for Rose-Lee during the nearly eight years it took to bring the shoe to market. “It was important for me to find a way to offer a lower heel for part of the day, because lowering the heel takes strain off the back.”

The shoe changes height by changing heels.

The wearer unfastens the heel with the help of a special brass key--or, in a pinch, a coin--that fits into a patented screwing device inside the shoe. The new heel is centered on the half-inch screw with the help of a short locating pin on the shoe’s base and is tightened on. The Velcro-secured insole is replaced so the wearer doesn’t feel the screw top.

The whole procedure takes about 20 seconds and can change the height of the shoe by as much as one inch, depending on the style of shoe and heel.

Each leather shoe comes with two sets of plain heels in different heights; extra-fancy heels covered with rhinestones or filigree or other ornamentation can be ordered. Rose-Lee shoes are expected to retail for about $90 when they begin appearing in stores this December.

The idea of a stylish shoe with an interchangeable heel originally came from Swerdloff’s mother, Beulah, who is a semi-retired shoe designer and artist. But it took the persistence of Swerdloff and Lewis to make the concept a reality despite skepticism from every shoe designer and manufacturer they approached for help.

“The shoe manufacturers weren’t too open-minded about making changes,” said Lewis, who is president and chief executive of Rose-Lee Beverly Hills. Shoe designers told Lewis and Swerdloff, who is chairman and chief financial officer, that altering the heel height would throw the entire shoe out of whack.

In the end, the entrepreneurs turned to unemployed aerospace engineers to make their sketches a reality.

This odd spin on defense conversion produced a variety of prototypes, including a shoe with a tracking system on the underside that allowed the heel to slip on and off. “Unfortunately, whatever is easy to put on is easy to come out,” Lewis said. Some of their ideas were more expensive than the shoe itself.

The heel they developed is actually more secure than a conventional heel, which generally is attached with glue and three or four short tacks, Swerdloff said. Swerdloff also specified more room inside the shoe and extra padding in the insole. The shoes’ shanks are unusually flexible to accommodate the changing heel height, he said.

Lewis and Swerdloff went to Rose-Lee’s June debut at the Footwear Fashion Assn. of New York’s two-day shoe industry shoe with few expectations and a showroom tucked way in the back of the Plaza Hotel with the rest of the newcomers.

“People in the industry warned me . . . ‘Don’t be disappointed. It’s a very competitive business. Don’t be expecting orders. Just take your shoe and show it and learn,’ ” Lewis recalled. “The first day we opened our door, we were jammed.”

Rose-Lee came home with thousands of dollars worth of orders. The experience was repeated at another shoe industry show in Las Vegas last month.

The company is now producing 15 different styles of shoes and 10 different types of heels ranging from 1/2 inch to 3 1/2 inches in height at a factory in Spain. Lewis, a Latina born in Los Angeles, said her ability to speak Spanish came in handy in setting up the manufacturing process.

Swerdloff and Lewis have run Rose-Lee Beverly Hills on a shoestring since they founded it in the mid-1980s.

They operate the 10-employee firm out of the billing office for Swerdloff’s orthopedic practice, sharing space with medical records and gauze pads. Patients wander through from time to time. An X-ray viewing box comes in handy for looking at film negatives of the company’s products.

Still, “it’s been a very expensive process,” Lewis said.

“I’ve invested several hundred thousand dollars in this business,” Swerdloff said. “Nobody really thinks about the hidden costs in setting up a business.”

For now, the partners have their hands full lining up new stores and filling orders while still keeping Swerdloff’s practice going.

Rose-Lee has yet to crack the big Southern California department store chains, but has received orders from several boutiques and from Mercantile Stores, which operates 100 department stores under various names in the South and Midwest. The U.S. Navy and some airlines also have expressed interest, Lewis said.

“It’s very encouraging,” Swerdloff said. “They ask us, ‘Can you handle high-volume orders?’ We feel we can.”