Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s plan to build a 1,300 square metre mansion in Montecito, California, has not gone down well with her neighbours.
“She’s created an uproar with neighbours on all three sides,” Andrew Rice, a spokesman for one neighbour, Michael MacElhenny, said.
The neighbours say the new building is too big, too tall and incompatible with the adjacent houses, and it blocks their views.
Rice said Paltrow — who has owned properties in Amagansett, London, Malibu, California, and Los Angeles’ Brentwood area, where a complaint was filed against her for erecting an oversized 2.7-metre gate — has left “a trail of tears” on two continents.
“Michael and the other neighbours have tried to work with her, and they’ve gotten nowhere,” Rice said.
The Montecito Board of Architectural Review voted in favour of the plans last month when her architect claimed the house had been lowered 2.4 metres. Rice said the real shrinkage was just 12 inches and that the project was moving forward to the next step based on incorrect information.