We worked out a system: starting on a yet-to-be-determined date, I would leave a list of items on the left end of the big kitchen’s counter inside the main house. I would prioritize these items. PRIORITY ONE meant that he must, at all costs, get the item(s) in question by any means possible. I figured that would cover me in case I ever ran into an emergency.

Bernie signed the usual NDA agreement, and because he was a key-holder there was additional legalese ensuring that he would never bring strangers onto the property, let alone the house. I was nothing if not thorough. Or maybe I should say that Larwin was thorough on my behalf.

Larwin and I communicated over the phone often during that year. He told me he gave up two of his other clients to devote most of his time to me. Was I flattered? No. I knew it was all business to him, including the flattery. Soon he wouldn’t be in touch with me at all, other than a yearly paycheck I would automatically issue him to keep him on the payroll. I knew he would say anything to remain in my good graces until then.

All of these things—the lawyer, the many workers, the construction costs, the research, the purchase of various memorabilia items—had barely put a dent in my lottery winnings. I tried not to think about it. Money was like drugs or a favorite food—as soon as I had it, all I could think about was losing it, for its purpose was to be used, so the having was never permanent. And I was convinced I would lose it, that nothing literally gold could stay. The best antidote to this worry was practiced indifference.

But, as it goes for most rich people, it wasn’t long before I became consumed with what more I could have. Why stop at the Three’s Company apartment building? Why not build a facsimile of the Regal Beagle, the local bar? Jack’s Bistro? The LA technical college? Arcade Florists, where Janet worked? They had been part of my original plan, but I’d hesitated on building them. As a person who had grown up on the weekly habit of standing in a grocery store and ruminating for long minutes on whether my desire to purchase a brand-name food item was too greedy, and eventually deciding that, yes, it was, and trundling my generic-food-filled cart in a dirge to the register while feeling both triumphant and pissed at this noble yet necessary self-deprivation, I had a superstition that if I breached a certain level of financial modesty I would jinx the whole thing. Imagine my shock when, one day a few months after construction started, I woke to find this superstition had worn off, and instead I felt bold and fresh. Just like that!

The city would be small but functional, laid out like a street in Santa Monica, only more compact. I wanted every detail of every set piece re-created. Most of all, I wanted the buildings to make sense from a city-planning perspective in order to do away with the need for backdrops. For example, through a window in the Regal Beagle a Bicycle Shop and Shoe Store were visible across the street—a matte painting in the television show—but in my re-creation there would be a real facade of a bicycle and shoe store across the street. Only the places whose interiors were seen on the show would be fleshed out into real buildings, I decided. Otherwise construction would never have finished.