There’s a childhood story that sometimes you can coax out of Richard Meruelo.

The 44-year-old developer spent his formative years working at his family’s downtown L.A. bridal shop, where he did odd jobs, from cleaning windows to taking gown measurements. But he may have learned the most by defending the business from an ornery parking lot kingpin.

The building that housed his family’s shop was badly damaged in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and Meruelo’s Cuban immigrant parents seized on the opportunity to buy the property – their first commercial real estate purchase.

But the parking lot businessman, who had paid the previous owners $500 a month to park cars on the property, balked at paying the new owners.

“They thought we were just fresh off the boat – which we were – and that we wouldn’t notice that they were parking there,” Meruelo said. “We said, ‘The title report says we own this piece. You just can’t do this.’”

So Meruelo’s father, the late Homero Meruelo, had a wall built. This stopped the businessman from parking cars on the lot – until, Meruelo said, the man rammed through the wall one night with an old van. Meruelo’s father sued, won and put up a second wall.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The family learned the businessman planned to break down the new wall. So young Meruelo, his brother and father – who was armed with a Colt Gold Cup handgun – laid in wait.

“(He) showed up with his van and there was a stand-off,” Meruelo said. “It was like, ‘If you cross the line I am going to shoot you.’ That went on for about 30 minutes and finally (he) left and paid the rent. And we took down the wall. It’s where I learned that you don’t give up if you are right – if you believe you are right.”

The tale, exaggerated or not, says a lot about the mercurial Meruelo, who in the last two decades has amassed 4 million square feet of space, 3.4 million of which is in the downtown area on about 110 acres. That makes him downtown L.A.’s biggest landowner, according to CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.

It’s not fancy stuff – mostly large warehouses and distribution facilities that house food processers, cold storage and wholesalers in gritty neighborhoods on the east side of downtown. And, yes, he owns parking lots, too.

It’s a portfolio that seems to befit a businessman who, despite a baby face, has developed a reputation for being tough as nails – a characterization he takes pride in, not offense. He’s also been called unorthodox and litigious, characterizations he bristles at.

What’s more, Meruelo is regarded as one of the city’s biggest enigmas. On the one hand, he was Antonio Villaraigosa’s biggest donor in his 2005 mayoral campaign. On the other, his profile is so low that several other downtown real estate executives, including veteran developer Jim Thomas, said they don’t know Meruelo much at all.

Those who do know him, said he’s dogged in pursuing deals, running his namesake firm and facing down foes.