From the haphazard nature of his house, even a stranger could surmise that a genius lived here. The place looked like a grown-up’s tree house – a kitchen unfolded to the right of the main entryway, with an open-plan breakfast nook that yawned out into the living room.

It was well lived-in, to say the least; there were stacks of manuscripts, books and dishevelled piles of notes littering the counters. The living room had a high ceiling with skylights and branch-like support beams that rose from the floor to the top. But the pièce de résistance was the maple tree that shot up through the middle of the room and reached towards the skylights.

I thought it was authentic at first and remained convinced even after sneaking a touch of its bark when Mr. Lerner wasn’t looking. It wasn’t until autumn came and passed that I realised it was an impossibly ethereal deciduous tree. Towards the back of the living room stood a wall of windows allowing a surveyor to look down onto Laurel Canyon from the top of the hill where his house was perched. I could see through the windows whenever Doris cleaned them, and if I wanted a spectacular view, I could simply walk out onto the wraparound deck that spanned the backside of the house.

Just off the front corner of the living room sprouted a small office, and this is where the stacks grew out of control. Sure, there were bookshelves, but they weren’t used for organisational purposes; stacks were all the rage in this place – the preferred modus operandi. Bookshelves were more like a wall, containing items that could have been hung for display, but their owner preferred instead to plop photos or framed academic degrees on them.

He only led me to the doorway of this room, but I could see a photo of him snapped long ago, maybe late-teens. His thinned frosty hair was absent, and a thick, lush brown coiffure took its place. The white collared shirt and thin black tie made him look like a proper 1950s musician. I wanted to know the boy in that photo. He was always who I imagined had written The Surfer.

More stacks continued in the ground floor toilet, where magazines and toothpaste boxes took the characteristic stalagmite pose. The only thing that wasn’t stacked or clumped was Mr. Lerner’s Academy Award, which stood, unprotected from splash-back, on the tank of the toilet.