Casino Antes Up for Ventura Trees

If they were to make a movie about the trees in the parking lot of the Ventura County Government Center, it might be called “Leafing Las Vegas.”

Twenty-eight of the lot’s Japanese privets--a tree the county tried to get rid of years ago--are to grace the grounds of Bellagio resort, a new luxury hotel on the Vegas Strip.

To the surprise of county officials, the Government Center parking lot is now seen by casino designers as a kind of mother lode for Japanese privets; many of the 140 trees there might be bound for two other hotels under construction in Las Vegas.

The 20-year-old trees have become a nuisance for those tending the Government Center’s parking areas. The roots are lifting patches of asphalt. Tiny black berries plop onto cars, baking into the finish under the summer sun.

But none of that mattered to planners of the $1.4 billion Bellagio. They roamed the West for more than a year, seeking mature Japanese privets--one of the few evergreens that can withstand withering desert heat. Berries could be hosed away, they reasoned; roots could be tamed with high-tech barriers.

In the vast and confusing Government Center parking lot, their dreams were realized.

“We came and inspected them and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ ” said Barbara Brinkerhoff, a landscape architect and co-owner of Lifescapes International of Newport Beach.

Some of the trees, especially those near the courthouse and jail, had been carved with gang graffiti, declarations of love and obscenities. Brinkerhoff passed on those--”They’re not right for a five-star, first-class hotel”--but she did choose one to honor the mother of Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas mogul behind Bellagio.

It says: Mom.

In return for its privets, the county will get replacement trees that don’t rip up the lot or rain sticky berries.

For three weeks, a crew from an Orange County company called Tree Relocation Experts has been excavating the 7-ton trees, building boxes of Douglas fir around the huge clumps of dirt encasing their roots. Wrapped in black shrouds, the trees are winched onto flatbed trucks, which can take just two of them at a time on the 341-mile drive to Las Vegas. Uprooting should be completed in March.

“We’ve got a 98% survival rate,” said Darrell Simpson, Tree Relocation’s owner. A mere transplant to Las Vegas is no big deal for the 17-year-old company. Simpson said his crews are on the verge of carting 300 cypresses from various spots in Southern California to a site in Saudi Arabia.

Traveling at night to avoid overheating the privets, drivers head for the site of the old Dunes hotel. On 122 acres, Steve Wynn’s Mirage Resorts is modeling its lavish new hotel and casino after the mountain village Bellagio, which overlooks Italy’s Lake Como.

The trees from Ventura County will line a meandering walkway beside Bellagio’s nine-acre lake, an oasis featuring dazzling fountains and a water ballet several times daily.

In the county parking lot, the low-hanging 20-foot-tall privets will be replaced with either crape myrtle or Brisbane box trees.

The path from parking-lot planter to Vegas show tree started with a phone call to county officials from Ventura County nursery owner Richard Baron.

About five years ago, the county contracted with Baron Brothers Nursery to get rid of its more troublesome privets, known in the trade as ligustrum lucidum. However, budget cuts aborted the campaign after just 15 or 20 trees.

In the meantime, the Barons had tapped into the Las Vegas construction boom, using nurseries in Camarillo and Somis to grow greenery for casinos. After sending 68 stately Italian cypresses to Bellagio, they were called by Mirage’s landscape architects during the privet search--made all the more frantic when another source dried up.

“We came up with a way the hotel could get their trees and the Government Center could get their privets replaced, plus the curbing around them,” Baron said. “It became a win-win situation for everyone involved.”

As replacements, the county would get whatever trees it chose, although younger and shorter than the privets. In addition, Baron Brothers would pay to replace damaged asphalt, rebuild curbs and truck the trees to Las Vegas.

The firm would provide security guards to direct drivers around bulldozers and cranes churning through the parking lot. In the end, the county wouldn’t spend a dime.

The offer proved irresistible.

“We got lots of complaints about those trees,” said Phillip Hammond, the county’s grounds manager. “When you have employees parking under them day after day, there are problems.”

The privets, which seldom are grown to maturity in nurseries, have thick leaves that endure both blasting heat and freezing cold. They can be given a formal, sculpted look but also provide a canopy of shade. In spring, they burst into white blossoms.

Just as appealing to some, gnarled calluses have formed on trees bashed over the years by county employees late for work or attorneys rushing to court.

Ambience doesn’t come cheap, however: For uprooting, transportation and all the rest of it, Mirage will end up paying about $6,750 for each tree, according to landscape architect Brinkerhoff. She said replanting them at Bellagio will require another $2,500 a tree.

Such costs hardly dissuade Las Vegas developers. Brinkerhoff said her firm has discussed acquisition of dozens of the other privets for two other projects. However, no contracts have been signed.

Meanwhile, few county employees have protested the change.

“We had one lady call and say, ‘What are you doing to my trees?’ ” said Paula Serrato, a management assistant in the General Services Agency, which oversees county facilities. “Several people have offered to accompany the trees to Las Vegas and hold their limbs to prevent shock.”