Millionaires row over giant tree

This summer, in the smart and rather exclusive corner of Kensington that nestles between the High Street and Gloucester Road, there is only one subject of conversation. The affair of Mr Meyer and his chestnut tree has pitted neighbour against neighbour, uniting film stars and bankers alike in opposition to a hugely wealthy Swiss philanthropist who, they fear, is about to destroy the leafy tranquillity of life in W8.

Dustin Hoffman and Lord Snowdon are among the dozens of objectors who have written to Kensington and Chelsea council about the plans by Vincent Meyer to develop his £6.5 million house in Victoria Road.

What Mr Meyer, the president of the London Philharmonia, is doing to his house is certainly remarkable. He has ripped out the whole of the inside of the four-storey, mid-Victorian house, leaving only the facade before rebuilding it all in his own style at an estimated cost of £4 million.

But that is not what has got his neighbours up in arms. Their concern is over the future of the large horse chestnut tree in the back garden - a tree that has been there for the past 70 years and should, according to experts, be good for another 70.

Earlier this year the 51-year-old Mr Meyer - the grandson of Andre Meyer, one of the founders of the Lazard-Fr?res bank - applied for permission to cut down the tree but was refused.

The council put a preservation order on the tree but his neighbours fear that the builders working on the basement have now dug so deep that they are in danger of killing the tree's roots anyway.

"If he does, he might be fined £20,000 - which for him is lunch," said one neighbour, who asked not to be named.

A council spokesman said: "We are aware of local concerns about the fate of this tree and are following the progress of the work very closely."

The neighbour said that when Mr Meyer's project manager - since replaced - first spoke to them, he said they "loved the tree, they were not going to touch it".

Then, in May this year, neighbours were given a schedule of works that revealed plans to cut it down. According to the new project manager, Colin Sampson, it cut out light to the rear of property, made it difficult to grow plants underneath, posed a "serious potential threat" to the stability of neighbours' houses and could cause subsidence in the future.

The neighbour said: "Mr Meyer wants everything to be new and perfect. The tree is not new so it has to go.

"But we like looking at it. It is something green, which is what is nice about living in London. It blocks the views into each other's houses, and helps to absorb sound."

Mr Sampson was not available for comment last night.

The controversy bears a strong similarity to an incident in Bury Walk, Chelsea, earlier this year. Residents were appalled to see a 100-year-old horse chestnut cut down even though planning conditions were in place to protect it.

During the building of a house, additional excavation became necessary, which was carried out without planning permission.

The work fatally undermined the tree's roots, and the landscape architects persuaded the council's tree officers that the chestnut was "dangerously unstable". It was felled immediately.

Theo Fennell and Anouska Hempel, both of whom have premises in Bury Walk, were furious.

Mr Fennell said it left "the entire neighbourhood feeling bereft", while Ms Hempel said: "The council don't really care about trees. Sometimes they fine builders but what does that matter when the extra square footage the builders have achieved by knocking down the tree is worth so much to them?"

Mr Meyer - who has two daughters by his second wife Elizabeth Stuart, as well as three children from his first marriage and one by a former girlfriend - was recently at the centre of a more serious controversy when he was charged in Switzerland with manslaughter and rape following the death of Philippine Lambert, a family friend who killed herself at the age of 20.

Before she died in 1997 Philippine, the "hauntingly beautiful" daughter of international banker Baron (Philippe) Lambert, accused Mr Meyer of sexually abusing her from the age of 12 until she was 15.

After a lengthy legal battle the public prosecutor in Geneva decided there was insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution.