A Boston-based billionaire has declared a neighborhood war after filing a scathing lawsuit against a couple’s proposed plans for a rooftop deck on their home.
Cable television tycoon, Amos Hostetter Jr., 87, filed the bitter lawsuit against his neighbors, Sarah Reilly and Per Ostman, claiming the proposed addition will cause ‘harm’ to the community.
The billionaire’s Mt. Vernon St. home, worth a whopping $18.2 million, sits just 300 feet away from the smaller Pinckney St. home which Reilly, 37, and Ostman, 42, bought for $5.8 million in 2022.
Hostetter’s claims that the proposal – which was approved last month – is in violation of the architectural commission’s guidelines, adding the nearly 22-foot by 18-foot deck ‘would be visible from public ways including Mt. Vernon Street and Alley 303.’
His civil complaint, filed in Suffolk Superior Court on September 19, suggested Reilly’s already-approved deck-top addition – one that his other neighbors already have – is ‘inappropriate to the historic district.’
The September 19 suit was filed along with owners of another home on Pinckney St., Martha McNamara, 62, and James Bordewick Jr., 65, who also have a similar rooftop deck atop their home right next door.
The furious trio proceeded to shun Reilly’s deck-top dreams in the disgruntled suit – claiming the daring homeowners would be able to peer into their private backyards if the building work went ahead.
The plaintiffs tacked on additional complaints of increased noise and diminished property values. Billionaire Hostetter already owns a slew of multi-million dollar homes across the Northeast – including in New Hampshire and Nantucket.
Reilly, a medical consultant who was featured in the Globe for her ‘funky Cambridge loft’, debunked Hostetter’s claim – arguing the mid-sized deck will not be visible from any vantage point on either Pinckney or Anderson Streets.
She added that the deck will be only slightly visible from an approximate ten-foot stretch of Hostetter’s street.
Hostetter’s claim seeks not only to have the approval overturned, but to bar Reilly and Ostman from having the deck built and to make them and the commission reimburse his attorneys for their work on the case.
The historic Beacon Hill home, also known as the Second Harrison Gray Otis House, is just one of many properties owned by the Continental Cablevision co-founder.
The 87-year-old owns multiple other Boston properties, a $6million Nantucket residence, and a plot of coastal land in New Hampshire with an estimated value that sits around $6.5 million.
The Barr Foundation’s co-founder has an estimated net worth of $3.8 billion and is ranked as the 538th richest person in the world as of 2020, according to Forbes.