Malibu’s billionaires are fighting each other to keep their multimillion-dollar homes from falling into the ocean, and one of them is accused of stealing the sand that holds them all together.
Financier James Kohlberg is suing his neighbor Mark Attanasio after the Milwaukee Brewers owner allegedly sent his bulldozers to the beach to grab ballast for his own personal seawall.
Attanasio, who took control of English soccer club Norwich City on Monday, is accused of hijacking the rapidly disappearing sands of Broad Beach, where celebrities including Dustin Hoffman, Pierce Brosnan and Robert DeNiro dip their toes.
(performance sport)
Instead, he left gasoline residue in the water and prevented his wealthy neighbors from accessing the beach, he allegedly said.
“This case involves a private property owner using a public beach as his own personal sandbox and the disruptive conversion of a public natural resource (i.e., Broad Beach sand) for the personal and private use of a nearby property owner,” the lawsuit states.
Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is being sued by his wealthy neighbors in Malibu, California, for “using a public beach as his own personal sandbox.”
The billionaire financier allegedly sent his bulldozers to Broad Beach to steal sand
Attanasio, 66, is the co-founder of Los Angeles-based Crescent Capital Group, which had more than $43 billion under management earlier this year.
He bought his oceanfront home for $23 million in 2007 and acquired the vacant lot next door for $6.6 million ten years later.
Kohlberg, his immediate neighbor, is the chairman of the eponymous private equity firm he co-founded with his father, Wall Street financier Jerry Kohlberg, in 1987.
He has dabbled in film and fiction writing, and purchased his oceanfront home for $14.2 million in 2021.
But powerful ocean currents off the coast of Malibu have been removing 35,000 cubic yards of sand from the beach each year for the past five years, leaving home foundations dangerously exposed.
A consortium of neighbors including Hoffman, Brosnan and comedian Ray Romano joined together in 2015 to fund a $31 million project to protect the beach’s sand, but the erosion rate is expected to reach 60,000 cubic yards per year.
Attanasio, a Bronx native who bought his Wisconsin baseball team in September 2004, obtained permits to repair a damaged section of the seawall outside his home in March of this year, the lawsuit claims.
Resident James Kohlberg called the move “indecent and offensive to the senses.”
Kohberg bought his oceanfront home at 31444 (left) for $14.2 million in 2021 and moved next door to Attanasio, who bought his at 31430 (right) for $23 million in 2007.
The founder of Kohlberg & Company pulled out his phone when he saw bulldozers plowing the beach outside his home.
Two months later, his bulldozers were on the beach, hauling sand to his property, now worth $34 million.
The suit claims the work is endangering local marine life and demands that he be fined for the alleged damage, ordered to stop work and forced to replace the sand he is accused of stealing.
‘Their intentional and unlawful actions are potentially injurious 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 surrounding properties.’
The Malibu sand theft is just the latest in a series of legal disputes involving billionaire California 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 all 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 dismissed his attempt to stop a lawsuit by the California State Lands Commission and the Coastal Commission that 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 shoreline through their properties.
Khosla’s legal team has criticised what it describes as an attempt to “seize our client’s private property without compensation”.
Attanasio, pictured here with the Brewers’ Ryan Braun and his wife Debbie, bought his baseball team in 2004 and took control of England’s Norwich City soccer club on Monday.
“While these tactics are common in communist systems, they have never been tolerated in the American system, where the U.S. Constitution prevents the government from simply taking private property and giving it to the public,” said attorney Dori Yob Kilmer.
Lawyers for Attanasio, who sold another beach house for $24 million in August last year, insist that 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 the forces of the ocean,” attorney Kenneth Ehrlich told the LA Times.
‘They have obtained all necessary permits for the repairs from the City of Malibu and Los Angeles County, and have thoroughly vetted all contractors and subcontractors involved in the project.’