Highlands Neighborhood Looks Like Easy Street To Lowlands Folk

"It is the wretchedness of being rich," wrote Logan Pearsall Smith, "that you have to live with rich people."

Smith is some author who shows up in quotation books and has been dead for more than 50 years now. I don't know about his problems with the rich, but Richard and Becky Allen have made theirs clear.

The Allens have found out that, unless you're in the mob, money can't buy silence.

It has been tough going for them up on Seattle's top real-estate rung, The Highlands, since Mariner co-owner Chris Larson started renovating the old McCone-Pigott estate into a gazillion-square-foot mansion with a 24-car, underground garage.

The name of the house is Norcliffe, but if it were up to the Allens, who live next door, it would be called The House That Ate the Highlands.

Bulldozers, cranes and backhoes have barreled through their neighborhood for two years now. And that would be tough on most folks.

But it shouldn't be that much of a hardship for people living in their own mansion with millions in the bank - certainly not enough to spur a lawsuit.

You know the saying, though: The rich are different.

"It's indescribable - the dust, the noise," Becky Allen complained to Seattle Times reporter Mike Carter recently.

"It's intolerable. We haven't been able to use our pool for two years."

In their suit against Larson and his wife, Julia Calhoun, the Allens (sorry, no relationship to Paul) say the project has devalued their property in the gated, guarded community, and caused them physical discomfort. Richard Allen reports adult-onset asthma and his wife chronic sinusitis.

"It's like being down on Sixth and Pike when they were doing the Nordstrom project," Becky Allen told Carter.

Now, I figure when you're dealing with the kind of folks who name their houses, you should keep your mouth shut and keep shoveling salt.

But I feel like calling Becky Allen right up and inviting her to join me at Gene Juarez for an aromatherapy session and a spa manicure. Her treat. (In fact, I tried, but she wasn't home.)

I mean, can you imagine?

Can you imagine complaining about noise and breathing in dust with your rarefied air, when half the city streets are surrounded by orange netting, and there are more dump trucks trundling through booming King County than in the Tonka toy factory?

These folks don't need lawyers to get them what they want.

They need to work behind the customer-service counter at Target to teach them how much they've got.

I've got a five-spot that says they wouldn't last five minutes.

And I'd bet twice that, if it didn't cut into my weekly coffee budget.

Of course, there is some comic relief in this blueblood version of the Hatfields and the McCoys, where instead of shooting and hooting, they're faxing and snooting.

The case of Allen vs. Larson has helped us laugh through the on-again, off-again summer weather, the crummy food at Safeco Field and "Wild, Wild West."

I loved the part in the lawsuit where the Allens asked Larson to pay them $9,000 a month so they could live elsewhere during the construction.

Larson apparently balked.

Of course, this is the same Chris Larson who asked taxpayers to pony up $60 million in cost overruns at Safeco Field.

And at home? He's spending big bucks on . . . wait, let me make sure I've got this right . . . a turtle island?

"They really don't have anything to cry about," said reader Bruce Morris.

Morris should know. He lives adjacent to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and listens to jets taking off and landing over his house, day and night, all year round.

"We're not crying about it," he said. "We're just trying to make ends meet."

Once you do that, though - and do it as well as the Allens and Larsons - I suppose you can't help but get caught up in other matters that may not have bothered you in your salad days.

From down here in the lowlands, though, the folks in The Highlands aren't looking that big at all.

Most rich folks would never let it get this bad. They'd just pack up and cloister themselves at Closters.

And perhaps that's what the Allens should do.

Instead of staying and suing and being taunted by the sight of their placid swimming pool, they should move to another gated community and, like the song goes, "Make the world go away."

There's a gated community in Madison Park. And probably a good manicurist, in case she needs a little pampering after all this strife.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday and Thursday in The Times. Her phone number is 206-464-2334. Her e-mail address is nbrodeur@seattletimes.com. Sorry. She couldn't help herself.