Malibu billionaires are at each other’s throats in a scramble to stop their multi-million dollar homes tumbling into the sea, with one accused of stealing the sand that is holding them all up.
Financier James Kohlberg is suing neighbor Mark Attanasio after the Milwaukee Brewers owner allegedly sent his diggers onto the beach to grab ballast for his own personal sea wall.
Attanasio, who seized control of England’s Norwich City soccer club on Monday, is accused of snatching the fast-disappearing sands of Broad Beach where celebrities including Dustin Hoffman, Pierce Brosnan and Robert DeNiro dip their toes.
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In its place he has left gasoline residue in the water, and prevented his well-heeled neighbors from accessing the beach, it is alleged.
‘This case is about a private property owner using a public beach as their own personal sandbox, and the disturbing conversion of a public natural resource (ie sand from Broad Beach) for a nearby homeowner’s personal, private use,’ the lawsuit claims.
Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is being sued for ‘using a public beach as their own personal sandbox’ by his well-heeled neighbors in Malibu, California
The billionaire financier allegedly sent his diggers onto Broad Beach to steal the sand
Attanasio, 66, is the co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Crescent Capital Group which had more than $43 billion under management earlier this year.
He bought his beachfront home for $23 million in 2007 and snapped up the empty lot next door for $6.6 million ten years later.
Kohlberg, his immediate neighbor is the chairman of the eponymous private equity firm which he co-founded with his father, the Wall Street financier Jerry Kohlberg in 1987.
He has dabbled in film-making and writing fiction, and bought his beachfront house for $14.2 million in 2021.
But the powerful ocean currents of the Malibu coast have been scooping 35,000 cubic yards of sand from the beach each year for the last five years leaving the foundations of the homes perilously exposed.
A consortium of neighbors including Hoffman, Brosnan, and comedian Ray Romano came together in 2015 to fund a $31 million project to protect the beach’s sand, but the rate of erosion is expected to reach 60,000 cubic yards per year.
The Bronx-born Attanasio who bought his Wisconsin baseball team in September 2004 secured permits to repair a damaged section of the seawall outside his home in March this year, the lawsuit states.
Neighbor James Kohlberg described the move as ‘indecent and offensive to the senses’
Kohberg bought his beachfront house at 31444 (left) for $14.2 million in 2021, moving in next door to Attanasio who bought his at 31430 (right) for $23 million in 2007
The Kohlberg & Company founder whipped out his phone when he saw the diggers plowing up the beach outside his home
Two months later his excavators were on the beach, dragging the sand back to his now $34 million property.
The lawsuit claims that the work is imperiling local sea life and demand he be fined for the alleged damaged, ordered to stop work, and forced to replace the sand he is accused of stealing.
‘His intended and unlawful actions are potentially harmful to health, are indecent and offensive to the senses, obstruct the free use of public property and interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of Broad Beach and the surrounding properties.’
The Malibu sand grab is just the latest in a series of legal spats involving Californian billionaire beach boys accused of eroding the rights of other users.
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla has been fighting for more than a decade to keep a secluded beach to himself next to his 89-acre, $32.5 million property in Half-Moon Bay, 35 miles south of San Francisco.
In May a California state judge threw out his bid to stop a lawsuit by the California State Lands Commission and Coastal Commission which would allow the public to return.
The state Constitution guarantees public access to all beaches below the high tide line.
But private landowners are not always required to allow access to the coastline across their properties.
Khosla’s legal team has slammed what is describes an attempt to ‘seize our client´s private property without compensation’.
Attanasio, pictured with the Brewers’ Ryan Braun and wife Debbie, bought his baseball team in 2004 and seized control of England’s Norwich City soccer club on Monday
‘While such tactics are commonplace in communist systems, they have never been tolerated in the American system where the US Constitution precludes the government from simply taking private property and giving it to the public,’ said lawyer Dori Yob Kilmer.
Lawyers for Attanasio, who sold another house up the beach for $24 million in August last year insist he and his company, 2XMD Partners LLC, have done nothing wrong.
‘2XMD is in the midst of a fully-permitted emergency repair of the property to protect it from ocean forces,’ lawyer Kenneth Ehrlich told the LA Times.
‘It has secured all permits necessary for the repairs from the City of Malibu and LA County as well as thoroughly vetted all contractors and sub-contractors involved in the project.’