The Bank Robber Who Lived in a Treehouse - ATC International

**Meshel Laurie** (0:03)
This is Australian True Crime International with Meshel Laurie.
Today, we're joined by Steven Meyers, author of The Treehouse, The True Story of Hollywood the Bank Robber, and someone who knows his story from a perspective very few people can ever get close to. In the 1990s, Steven was the main accomplice of his friend, Scott Scurlock, better known as the Hollywood Bandit. Together, they carried out a remarkable series of bank robberies across Seattle, using elaborate disguises and meticulous planning to evade police. As you'll discover, they're both eccentric fellows, and there is indeed a treehouse involved in this story. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
Well, seeing you and to speak and reading your book and then you talk a lot about Scott and in glowing terms and also in the documentary, His Sister Speaks, you both do come across as very likable people, people that I sort of wish I'd been in the gang. Is that crazy?

**Steven Meyers** (1:16)
They all said, everybody did, we were normal people. We jumped into this world. I mean, Scott, believe me, he was operating on another level before I even met him, before we came together. My brother and him were friends since college, since high school actually. So that's how I came in contact with Scott years after. That's when he was still cooking his crispa cook as a meth cook.
So he was training to be a doctor. He went to Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington and he wanted to go to med school. But then at some point, the reality of all of that world was never him. I mean, he was made differently. What can I say? He was very intelligent, persistent, and especially when it came to his work and his ideals. Be they as skewed as they may seem to most people.
But the sad part about all of this, it's not sad, it's just normal psychology. Is that like what you were saying, that you would have loved to have met us and been around us? Well, all the people that were around us, and when you looked at all of those people on that Netflix thing, which they were just local neighbors, none of the real particulars that had connections to us during those years would have showed up. But the reality, including his family, all were ingratiated from his lifestyle, his wealth. They all knew he didn't have a job. I mean, he would make up some kind of thing. I mean, and we did construction work. He did do things with me in Chicago, rehabbing buildings that we'd buy, real estate we'd buy and sell. You know, but it was marginal. It was mostly me, but he would come. But he was a worker and they all benefited from his life.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:04)
Yeah, he was very generous.

**Steven Meyers** (3:05)
When they come on this, the Netflix and other people after the fact, it's all this, how could he do that? Moralizing, well, how could you do what you do? He knew he didn't have a job. You knew something was going on, and yet you did it. I mean, you know, we never came across as gangsters, killers, any of that, any of that.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:23)
He seems to have come across as almost a bit of a, sort of a hippie in terms of his outlook in life. I mean, the way I've summed him up when I've been so excited about talking to you and I've been saying to people, okay, we'll put it this way. Scott Scurlock built a treehouse, and they're like, what do you mean? And I say, he built a house, like a grown up treehouse and he lived in it. And it was like six stories and it had a bathroom, it had, I mean, and you've called you Book the Treehouse.
That really does, it seems to me, that sums him up in so many ways, do you agree?

**Steven Meyers** (3:53)
Yeah, very perceptive. I mean, that's why I named the title to Book the Treehouse is because if the treehouse never existed, none of this would have happened. It was like a sanctuary in a forest, 19 acres he had in Olympia, Washington. And it was an experience that everyone wanted to be around. You stepped into it and you're in another world. And it was a protector.
You know, we did what we did. You grew.
You know, he started the treehouse long before he started any of the other stuff, the crystal cooking, any of that. The treehouse was an extension of his rogue view of the world, if that makes sense to you.