Part of a giant, 300-year-old oak tree fell onto the home of two-time Grammy winner and platinum-record producer Joel Diamond, smashing into his bedroom and crushing three cars outside, Diamond said Saturday.
It happened at 11:45 p.m. Friday around Mulholland Highway and Stunt Road, Diamond said.
“I was awakened out of a dead sleep,” he said. “I heard the thud and thought it was the “big one,” he said, referring to an earthquake. He said his wife, actress-singer Rebecca Holden, screamed and “thought someone had broken in.”
The tree, weighing about 15 tons, had split and about six tons of it fell on Diamond’s house. All three of his cars, including a classic Jaguar, which was just received back from a body shop, were smashed.
The tree was valued at $250,000, Diamond said. “It’s so much tree.”
Friend Tony Orlando, whose signature song, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree” wrote Diamond a note, saying, “After tying over 4,000 yellow ribbons on oak trees around the world, your tree is by far the most magnificent oak tree I have ever seen.”
“It’s in a gazillion pieces in my driveway,” Diamond said. He had to call someone with a chainsaw to enable him to get out of the house.
“Amongst wildfires and COVID-19, I was not prepared for this one,” Diamond said.