By Arshad Mohammed
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 12, 2006; D01
It's tough to spot, but there is a pine tree in Great Falls Park that's a little taller and fatter than most of the others in the dense forest.
The tree -- with a steel trunk, rubber bark and plastic needles -- is actually a cellphone tower in disguise, bolted to a concrete base and surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.
As the cellphone has become an indispensable feature of modern life, consumers expect to be able to make calls from almost anywhere -- walking to the store, sitting in an office building or hiking down a trail. At the same time, they do not want the wireless phone companies cluttering their neighborhoods and parks with the metal transmission towers that make five-bar cellphone signals possible.
That's why the companies are having to become more creative, building faux landscapes that hide wireless antennas in many parts of Washington and other cities across the country.
For years, cellphone companies have been disguising cell sites in unique places -- church spires, artificial palm trees and even fake cactuses. plants. But as heavy cellphone usage has extended beyond the downtowns of big cities and into suburban communities, and even the tranquility of nature, the companies are facing greater challenges.
Likewise, the newer demands on the cellphone networks -- text messages, music downloads and video streaming, among them -- are requiring more towers.
"It is a problem," said Keith Mallinson, a Yankee Group executive vice president who directs wireless research at the consulting company. "Everyone wants to have the coverage. Everyone complains when the coverage is bad. But no one wants an ugly tower in their back yard."
Even when the tower has to be in the back yard, the companies are willing to spend top dollar to try to ensure that it is not a terrible eyesore.
Consider the brick Cape Cod at 3845 Military Rd. in Arlington, with its rounded white portico, green shutters and neatly mulched beds of azaleas, hostas and black-eyed Susans.
And the 110-foot cell tower in the back yard.
No one lives in the house. Verizon Wireless built it to hold racks of electronic equipment and fat cables that run out to the tower, painted green at its base to blend in with the trees and changing to a blue-gray at the top to match the sky.
"Business is growing almost exponentially," said Ryan McCarthy, a project engineer with Larson Camouflage LLC of Tucson, one of a handful of companies in the industry. "Not only are more and more jurisdictions pressing for these sorts of solutions, but the ones that are, are becoming more and more stringent. It used to be you could get away with a flagpole; now they want things that look better."
In cities, antennas are typically placed on top of buildings, where they seldom attract attention. But in historic areas like Northwest Washington's Federal Triangle, cellphone companies have had to find ways to deliver service without marring important vistas and landmark buildings.
To help improve coverage at the White House South Lawn, the massive limestone facade of the nearby Commerce Department is adorned with a string of antennas spaced to echo its balustrade and smeared with a mixture of paint, soot and bird droppings to match the aging exterior.
The idea is to hide as much as possible to mute the inevitable clashes between people who want better service and those who cannot bear to see their views marred.
Still, controversy is inevitable. The house on Military Road in Arlington was no exception, though even its opponents acknowledge that Verizon went to great lengths to match the mostly 1930s homes that line the street and cost $800,000 and up. The house is so realistic that newspapers are often tossed onto the driveway even though no one is inside to read them.
"If you put a for-sale sign in front, I am sure there would be people out here that would want to buy it -- tower notwithstanding," Burton Bostwick, who lives down the street, said with a laugh.
Kathi Reidy, who lives directly across the street, was "appalled" when she learned that Verizon planned to take down a 60-foot cell tower on the site and build one nearly twice that size.
Four years after the new tower and house were completed -- at a cost that Verizon puts at roughly $1.5 million -- her horror has faded into resignation.
"They did build an attractive house, and they do take good care of the grounds," she said, but the 110-foot tower clearly still rankles. "We have sort of trained ourselves to ignore it," she said, wincing.
Digital Design & Imaging Service Inc. in Falls Church has worked on about 75 stealth sites in the region, including the antennas on the Commerce Department, the artificial tree on the Virginia side of Great Falls and the Verizon house in Arlington.
Company President Curt Westergard said his basic approach is to try to find the patterns in the surrounding area -- whether a federal building downtown, a suburban street or the forest at Great Falls -- and replicate them "so that ultimately people don't see the break in the rhythm," he said.
The Military Road site could have been a precast, concrete box with some pine trees around it. Instead, work went into making it look as nice as possible.
"You've got a tower in your back yard. There is no denying that," he said. "But at least you have got the front yard. It's not the Cleavers' house. It's telecom central . . . but it really fits in."
Staff researchers Robert Lyford and Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.