Why Gigi Hadid’s dad might be jail-bound

It has been dubbed the “Starship Enterprise” for its resemblance to a glass spaceship floating incongruously against a backdrop of trees and dense foliage. Now the man behind the most notorious home in the exclusive Los Angeles suburb of Bel Air faces a possible jail sentence after the council pressed charges over the so-called “giga mansion” built to twice its permitted heights and size.

The charges have been filed against Mohamed Hadid, a flamboyant property developer and father of celebrity models Gigi and Bella, who has appeared on reality TV shows including The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Hadid has built a 2,787 square metre hillside property in the tranquil haven for the rich, known for its elegant homes. When he started developing it in 2011, Hadid envisaged that it would eventually be sold for in excess of $100 million (Dh367 million) and proudly posted regular pictures of the ongoing work at the site on his Instagram account.

Instead, it has been branded by critics as an ugly “poster child” for outsized modern mansions. They say the idyllic surrounds of residents who include Nancy Reagan, Jennifer Aniston and Motown founder Berry Gordy is becoming a magnet for developers seeking to sell to foreign buyers at inflated prices. Aniston and her husband Justin Theroux have called on the council to bring in tougher building codes.

It has also become the focal point of a titanic legal tussle between Hadid and neighbour Joe Horacek, an entertainment lawyer whose clients include Michael Douglas. Horacek, whose white stone villa is overshadowed by Hadid’s house, began compiling a legal file after becoming worried that the giant development taking shape above his home could cause a catastrophic landslide.

“The geological and engineering work undertaken beforehand were never designed to support something of this size,” said Horacek. Council inspectors found the property was 83 square metres larger than permitted, revoked permits and charged Hadid after saying he had continued building in defiance of 10 stop notices.

Unfazed, Hadid published an article online headlined “My neighbours can shove it” and said he viewed the charges as akin to “a parking ticket” and intended to continue building.

Silver-maned at 67, Hadid, like many of his clients, is an immigrant. Born in Nazareth in 1948, he moved to Virginia as a teenager with his Palestinian family and spent his early business career in the Washington area, developing office buildings and Ritz-Carlton hotels. Central to his success even then was his ability to woo foreign financiers — French and German backers, and in particular the SAAR Foundation, a group of Saudi investors.

In the 1990s, Hadid was involved with a number of small companies. Several ran into problems, and he filed for personal bankruptcy.

By the early 2000s, Hadid had moved to Los Angeles and begun his next act, as homebuilder to the stars. He built the estate where Michael Jackson died, as well as Palazzo di Amore, a Beverly Hills estate now listed for resale for $149 million. His clients were not always happy — among those who sued him and later settled was Sylvester Stallone — but new buyers kept coming.

Among his big-ticket sales was a Beverly Hills house, with a glowing pyramid in a reflecting pool, that was acquired in 2010 by a shell company tied to the stepson of the prime minister of Malaysia. (The prime minister is now a target of corruption investigations at home and abroad.)

In an interview with the New York Times, Hadid said he did not want to discuss accusations about his construction practices. But he did want to discuss neighbourly etiquette. His own neighbour, he said, has been doing construction for 11 years. Still, he said, “I never complain because I understand these complexities.” They come with the business.

“I seek the highest end of the smallest percentage of the market,” he explained. “There’s a lot of need for the high-end here.”

Without naming names, Hadid said the Strada Vecchia neighbours were “extortionists” and that they were the ones motivated by greed. Horacek, for one, dismissed that, saying Hadid had offered him $2.5 million to drop his complaints but he had turned down the offer. It’s not about money, he said.

— With inputs from Louise Story, New York Times News Service