A Florida couple will have to take down their beachfront tree house after the Supreme Court declined to get involved in a dispute over it.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to take the case brought by Lynn Tran and Richard Hazen, who live on Anna Maria Island on Florida’s west coast. The couple built a two-story tree house on their Holmes Beach property in 2011 after being told they didn’t need a permit.
Tran and Hazen spent about $30,000 constructing their treehouse equipped with hammocks and windows.
But after an anonymous complaint to the city about the structure, officials investigated and found the couple did need to go through the permitting process. It turns out the tree house is located in an area where building is prohibited because of a city setback.
The couple tried to take the fight to voters but courts stopped them.
Lynn Tran and her husband Richard Hazen pose near their Australian pine tree house on Thursday in Holmes Beach, Florida
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear their case after city and state officials ordered the tree house removed
The justices only hear argument in about 80 of the thousands of cases they’re asked to take each year.
Tran and her husband run a rental property called Angelinos Sea Lodge on Anna Maria Island on Florida’s west coast.
They have a house on their property and four rental units, in addition to the tree house.
The city got an anonymous complaint about the tree house. After an investigation, the city found the couple did actually need to go through the permitting process
The tree house is equipped with hammocks, windows and this sign that says: ‘Never, Never, Never give up…’
The tree house must be torn down. The justices had their first opportunity to consider taking the case at a closed-door conference Friday, and the decision to decline it came on Monday
Holmes Beach Mayor Bob Johnson noted in a telephone interview that courts have sided with the city and he called the continued legal wrangling ‘quite honestly a waste of time’.
‘For some reason these people have this fixation on it,’ he said.
Tran said she never expected such a drawn-out fight and that in hindsight the couple could have taken the money they’ve spent on the tree house, gone somewhere else and built an actual house.
Tran said she never expected such a drawn-out fight and that in hindsight the couple could have taken the money they’ve spent on the tree house (pictured), gone somewhere else and built an actual house. The couple spent a total of $30,000 on the tree house in 2011
The couple don’t have any children of their own enjoying the tree house, and renters aren’t allowed up for liability reasons, but Tran said guests and beachgoers often admire the structure.
‘It’s kind of fun to have around,’ she said.
They accumulated a $50 a day fine for not taking down the tree house, a fine that’s now tens of thousands of dollars.
To take down the structure, they’ll need the one thing they didn’t have before they began putting it up: a city permit.