Firm Erects Giant Firs That Usher In the Holidays

It was the week before Thanksgiving Day and Vito Serrao was on the move.

From his Laguna Niguel home, he drove to Carlsbad, where he supervised the installation of a 50-foot Christmas tree, and then to Fashion Island, where his company put in what is touted as the tallest yule tree in the U.S. this year. Then it was back in his car and off to the San Fernando Valley. He would not return home until nearly midnight.

To keep up with the human blur, you had to track him on his cell phone. From his end, the conversation went like this: “Hey, call me back in 45 minutes. I gotta get this truck out of here.”

Forty-five minutes later:

“Yeah, yeah, I know I said 45, but hey. Look, call me back in 10 minutes, OK? I gotta run these painters over to the store, then we can talk.”

And so on.

It’s the holiday season. And, for Serrao and members of his family at Victor’s Strictly Custom Christmas Trees, “we gotta move. Every two days, we bring a tree in and we got to be ready.”

At Victor’s--named after Serrao’s 25-year-old son, who now runs the business--they don’t install your average 6-foot Christmas tree. They handle what only few companies nationwide can afford by roaming the forests of Northern California, hand-picking super-large, perfect trees weighing many tons.

Each tree, some more than 100 feet tall and 35 feet wide at the base, will be cut, shipped and groomed for one of many upscale shopping malls in Southern California.

Giant malls such as the Promenade of Westlake in Thousand Oaks and Fashion Island in Newport Beach host annual tree-lighting ceremonies that attract thousands of spectators who ooh and aah when the big switch is thrown.

“It’s used as a kickoff for the holiday season,” said Lynette Jeffers, assistant general manager at the Promenade. “It also marks the arrival of Santa Claus to our mall. Santa comes in on a pufferbelly train [a steam train] . . . and he flips a switch for all the Conejo Valley to see.”

For Serrao, the 64-year-old family patriarch, the season begins in June; by mid-November, members of his family have hit full stride. Nearly everyone joins in, including Serrao’s daughters--Vicky, Vanessa and Vandra--and half a dozen grandchildren.

Tree holes must be dug, lifts and cranes rented, ornaments delivered, all under a crushing deadline that coincides with Thanksgiving. In the competitive Christmas tree business, big tree installations can cost $100,000 to $175,000 or more. And there are no dress rehearsals, said Vicky Roney, Serrao’s daughter.

“There’s a lot of pressure on us because we’ve got lights-on ceremonies everywhere. Whether it’s rain or shine, these trees have to be up,” she said.

In the week before Thanksgiving Day, the Serraos were spread out working on tree projects from Carlsbad in north San Diego County to San Francisco.

The company began as a side business in 1957 when Serrao owned a small air-conditioning and repair firm.

“My first lot was at Katella and Los Alamitos Boulevard,” Serrao said. “Ross Cortese, who at that time was the builder for Leisure World, let me use that lot. I made $250 and I thought I was rich and went out and bought us a washer and dryer. I felt like a king.”

Customers quickly noticed that Serrao had a knack for picking select trees, especially larger ones. “People such as bank presidents and vice presidents who bought our trees told my dad, ‘Hey, Vito, your trees are better than the ones we’re buying for our lobbies. Can you get us some next year?’ ” Roney said. “And that’s how we started.”

When Serrao moved his family from Norwalk to Mission Viejo in the mid-1960s, he installed the first Christmas tree for the fledgling community, which was nothing more than a few homes off the La Paz Road offramp of I-5.

“At that time, there wasn’t much in Mission Viejo. No cable TV. No nothing,” Roney recalled. “Our first tree there was a 40-foot white fir.”

The next year, the Mission Viejo development company commissioned the Serraos to put lights and ornaments on the olive trees growing in the medians on Chrisanta Drive. Although the family no longer decorates the trees, the lighting continues each holiday season and has become a tradition for Mission Viejo, which incorporated in 1988.

Each June, Serrao travels to Northern California, where he employs his uncanny ability to select the right tree as he roams dense forests. He prefers white firs to Douglas firs.

“It’s all white fir,” Serrao said, “because these are much heavier foliage and they’ll stand up for the entire season. A Doug fir is a beautiful tree but is so light-needled that in a couple of weeks’ time it’ll start to give and everything will start to come apart.

“You look for a tree with a nice top. If it’s a 100-foot tree, you got to have 60 foot of really nice, tight top. The reason for that is because the top of the tree can’t have a lot of branches because the trunk is very, very thin as it goes up. So, you got to be very selective.”

Once the tree is selected, a road must be built to allow a crane in to lift the tree onto the bed of a special, extra-long truck for the drive to Southern California.

When the tree arrives, it is sprayed with a flame retardant, and the decoration phase begins.

The tree at Fashion Island is so perfect that Robert Hoskins, who visited the mall recently, had to chew the tree’s needles as proof of its authenticity.

First Hoskins smelled the aromatic tree, then broke off a handful of green needles and began chewing. “Yup, it’s real,” he said.

But cutting gorgeous trees that can, as in the case of the 110-foot specimen, take nature 52 years to grow can smack of commercialism that doesn’t make everyone happy.

Elizabeth Meyer, president of Releaf Costa Mesa, a group intent on planting 2,000 trees by 2000, said she understands the public enjoys the Christmas tree tradition.

“But I think that trees are so valuable because of all the things they do for us,” Meyer said, such as adding oxygen to the environment and reducing air pollutants. “If I put up a Christmas tree, I buy a live tree and after the holidays I plant it somewhere.”

It is a concern the family is aware of, Serrao said, quickly adding that for every tree cut, 14 seedlings are planted in its place.

“I understand their feelings when a beautiful tree is cut out of a beautiful forest,” Serrao said. But if large trees are not cut, Serrao argued, they block the healthy growth of smaller trees by taking up sun and nutrients.

He said the family cuts trees already slated for timber sale.

“So instead of letting it fall down to make pencils and 2-by-4s, we’ll cut it and bring it here.”