A father is making a last-ditch effort to save his son's treehouse in the Lowry Hill neighborhood after city officials determined the structure must go.

The two-year-old structure is perched in a towering box elder tree in the front yard of Clement Pryke's home at 1812 Emerson Av. S. in Minneapolis.

Pryke's teenage son, Daniel, said in a hand-printed letter to the city that he and his friends have held sleepovers in the treehouse several times without issues.

"It has years of fun left in it and I would really love it if it didn't have to be taken down right now," Daniel said.

Zoning Administrator Steve Poor has determined that the treehouse is too high, too close to neighbor's house and must be torn down.

On behalf of his son, Pryke is making his appeal to the little-known Board of Adjustment on Thursday.

Zoning Administrator Steve Poor has determined that the treehouse is too high, too close to neighbor’s house and must be torn down.

According to the appeal, which cost $449.78 to file, Daniel had wanted a treehouse when they lived in Chicago. But their home lacked a big enough tree, and his father was already busy remodeling a house.

When the Prykes moved to Minneapolis, Daniel said in the letter, he again asked for a treehouse.

This time, he said, his father consented and in 2012 devised a "cunning plan" to span the space between two trunks of a sprawling box elder tree. The tree stands in the front yard between their house and their neighbor's, and is the only tree on the property suitable for a treehouse.

The elder Pryke, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota, contends that the treehouse is a high-quality structure made out of cedar. He said he will take it down when Daniel leaves for college in 2019.

The issue came to City Hall after a neighbor filed a complaint two years ago, shortly after the treehouse was built.

The Prykes live in a neighborhood featuring some of the oldest and grandest homes in the city, including many Victorian, Colonial and Mediterranean houses built before 1900.

After the complaint was filed, Pryke submitted a save-the-treehouse petition, signed by 13 neighbors. He has also attended meetings of the local neighborhood association to build support for the treehouse.

Treehouses do not require a building permit and are not explicitly referred to in the city's zoning code.

But Poor determined that they are very similar to a playhouse, which city law does address. The height of such structures is generally limited to 12 feet, but can go up to 16 feet in certain circumstances, according to a staff report.

City staffers went to the home this week and measured the height of the tree house at 22 feet. Staffers said that even with a special city-approved variance, the height would need to be capped at 18 feet.

Pryke contends, however, that the treehouse height should be measured from its base in the tree, rather than from the ground.

That argument has fallen flat with zoning officials. Poor said that siding with Pryke on the height would set a bad precedent that could lead to even loftier tree houses.

Pryke's treehouse faces a new and significant problem.

City staffers who measured the structure this week also determined that the treehouse extends about 15 inches over the adjoining property line. The city measured the treehouse at a mere 10 ½ feet from the neighbor's house. Anyone in the treehouse could look directly into a bedroom window of the neighbor's house.

The elder Pryke acknowledged that the treehouse is close to his neighbor's house, but said it is only used in the summer when leaves screen the view.

However, photos show that the tree has few leaves at the height of the treehouse.

The city of Minneapolis maintains that this treehouse built by Clem Pryke for his teenage son is too high and too close to a neighbor’s home and thus must be torn down. Pryke is appealing at a hearing Thursday. Treehouses don’t require building permits.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438

Twitter: @brandtstrib