A simple tree house branches out in Lynn

LYNN – Marcelo Rindeiko can be forgiven for not knowing the name of every child dashing through his backyard. After all, Rindeiko’s two-story tree house is the prime attraction in his Basset Street neighborhood in Lynn.Halloween has seen more than a dozen kids packed into the tree house. Victoria Rindeiko, 13, has hosted six of her girlfriends there for sleepovers.”We didn’t get a lot of sleep,” she said.Rindeiko makes a living in the demolition business, but he likes to build things, too. A Brazil native and an East Lynn resident for 14 years, he got the idea to build a playhouse around a backyard pear tree 10 years ago.”I built the bottom level and then I was watching Discovery Channel’s ?Treehouse Masters’ and my daughters asked, ?Can you build us one?'” he said.A modest tree house outfitted with a hammock and slide expanded into an upper level with a porch protected by a rails surrounding a little house nestled in the tree’s branches with windows and a bird house.”It took me a couple of months-worth of weekends,” he said.Rindeiko cut the center out of a rug to fit it around the tree trunk and Victoria made beanbag chairs for the house. The tree house is the main attraction on a wood outdoor deck that includes a palm-frond umbrella, a work shed with a small porch, and hammock and enough chairs to host a Brazilian-style barbecue.”The hammock’s for mom,” he said, referring to his wife, Katia.Victoria and 6-year-old sister, Yolanda, fill the deck and tree house with neighborhood friends on summer days. They can spend time outside their house but still be within sight of the kitchen window when they climb up through the tree house’s trap door.”One time I looked out the window and saw a line of kids climbing up the ladder to the trap door,” Victoria said.Neighbor Theresa Griffin’s children, Jessica, 8, and George, 11, are frequent Rindeiko playmates, and Griffin is known to occasionally climb into the tree house.”It brings out the kid in the adult,” she said.Rindeiko said his backyard creation is a reflection of his happy childhood in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.”The reason I built it was for the kids,” he said. “I had a nice time as a kid.”He periodically inspects the tree house’s support beams and rails to make sure they are sturdy, and he has plans to expand his project, although he is holding off on plans to run a zip line from the tree house to the work shed.Victoria Rindeiko said the tree house doesn’t need any additions to make her happy.”It’s cool he made it for us,” she said.