TASTEFUL FRIENDS : $10M Nantucket home subject of lawsuit

There once was a house from Nantucket...

Here's the property listing for the $10M Nantucket home, complete with photos inside and out.

It's hardly as extreme, but the crazy husband of one of my relatives has bragged to me about how he has gone around cutting branches and the tops of trees so that they can have a view of the ocean from the upstairs bedroom balcony of their cottage, in Maine. They are about 2 streets away from the ocean. The trees are all rather small around there.

There was a sort of formless-looking evergreen type of tree in the people's yard across the street, next to the road. He started cutting branches off it when the people weren't there. After maybe about two years but it started to die, and had to be cut down. He has also gone to other streets and has cut branches off small trees. Anyhow, another neighbor saw him cutting branches off the evergreen and told the owners. Now they don't speak to him. But he does have a view of the beach now.

Another shithead that figures it's always better to beg for forgiveness than to ask permission.

Unfortunately, they're right; that's how the world works.

The story doesn't make a big enough point about the fact that the owners of the desecrated property are off-site in a home - I'm guessing a care facility - meaning they weren't ever there and certainly not there when the offending neighbor hired people to do his dirty work.

I'd also like an interview of the people that cut down all the trees.

We don't see a problem with this.

The rich have a different court system. A good friend of ours was heavily fined and nearly went to jail for clearing fallen dead trees and brush in front of their lake front home. This was an old home, handed down generations, not wealthy people at all. He felt he was doing a service as it was a fire hazard. It did not improve their water view or provide more lake access. Nope. The town came down on him like a ton of bricks (on Cape Cod). No good deed goes unpunished.

R6 You don't say why he was heavily fined. Were the trees and brush not on town land, or what?

R6 I meant: not on his land.

Correction. I should have typed "... it's always [bold]easier[/bold] to beg for forgiveness than to ask permission."

There's nothing better about it.

A fight between the arriviste and Old Money!

He should have held out for prune danish.

That would get you a $20k+ fine in Austin. I think it’s about $1500 per tree, depending on circumference.

The stupid asshole violated personal property laws & cut down perfectly good trees in Nantucket. Plus, they're old people who been there forever on the island. The court is going to soak his new money ass.

Wow, that’s the best (worst?) example of a Masshole I’ve ever read.

Man that is dirty. Just downright dirty.

There is a Jacoby that works for Blackstone in NYC. It wouldn't surprise me if it was this person.

This type of action - clearing the trees on a property that doesn't belong to one - is not at all that uncommon. Hence my comment that "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission."

Unless your locality has laws on the books - and/or monetary damages - that specifically prohibits it or punishes it, if someone clear cuts your property, you're shit out of luck other than possibly a trespassing charge. Even if there's a fine, people don't give a shit if their clearing of the property gets them what they wanted. And they didn't have to ask for permission and be denied.

And, in any case, your trees are still gone. They can't be replaced with the same size and age. No matter how much money you may get awarded.

This reminds me of so many Judge Judy cases I have seen over the years (seriously). Each season she always had a few of these cases on - some neighbor cuts down or trims back shrubs and trees without the owner's permission. Even when the trees or shrubs / hedges separate the property lines.

And each and every time, Judy gives the plaintiff the maximum they are asking, since the trees / shrubs can't be replaced. The defendant always claims 'they didn't know it belonged to the owner', or 'they were doing the owner a favor'. Over and over she has said, 'If the greenery hangs over to your side, you have every right to prune and trim it back. However, you have no right to remove it without the owner's permission'.

the owner of the property where the trees were cleared. He should built giant "trees" out of steel and fabric and block the view again.

The interior is sterile and looks like something built in The Sims.

Did Jacoby plan to sell the home before he cut the trees, and committed the offense so he could advertise the view or did he list the house for sale after the lawsuit and bad publicity, in preparation for paying a court judgment or settlement?

If I was the property owner whose mature trees were cut down, someone would have had to hold me back or Jacoby wouldn't have to worry about any lawsuit or anything else for that matter. Fifty trees! One would be too many.

16 trees-most were 50 years old& older.

sue them for the asking price of their home

The way I read the story, he cut the trees down so he could advertise his house as having a view. I'm guessing he knew he was going to sell.

Probably thought, "What are those old demented people going to do about it?"

Maybe there is some crazy way that they can get a lien placed on the shithead's house. Makes it very hard to sell a house, and you can't get a mortgage if there's a lien. Though I don't think we're talking about people that have to finance their purchases.

Lawyers? A lien?

Thank you, R23 . I need to fact check my comments before posting because my memory of what I've read cannot be relied on.

What a piece of shit.

If you go to the listing, you can inquire about the house. I asked why the cunt cut down someone else’s trees, as if we didn’t know. And I shamed them for working with him.

If I was the owner of the property with the felled trees, anyone viewing the property of the shithead next door would be met with an unobstructed view of the largest billboard I could afford, saying that a fast-growing forest or a large, unsightly concrete wall was planned for the site.

R7 yes it was his land. you are not free to do what you will on your land if it is a watershed - at least in our state - which means if some action you can do can cause run off into the water.....my advice to anyone is to just hose down your house and lawn and drop a lit cigarette into the land you want to clear, and let her rip.......unless you're rich, then you can do whatever you want.

[quote] The way I read the story, he cut the trees down so he could advertise his house as having a view. I'm guessing he knew he was going to sell.

If I understood it correctly, he had it previously listed without the 'water view' description (because he didn't have a 'water view' with the trees blocking it) and he didn't get any bites. So took it off market, he cleared the trees, added 'water view' to the description, and then raised the price once he put it back on the market.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the offending party's now more marketable house looks to be constructed almost entirely of flammable materials, and to be a clear arrow shot from the surrounding tree lines.

I'm just saying...

Where we live the owner cut down 5 or 6 of their own trees on their own property and was fined $109,000 and ordered to replace them. The fine was attached to his property tax bill. This is in an ultra-red country-club area.

Why do people kill trees ??? My own father was a tree killer too . He cut down a bunch of old pines and a huge oak tree that shaded the front yard . He said it was because of hurricanes,never mind the 40 years they lived there and they werent cut down. I firmly believe he did it to spite us all since we loved those trees . He's as dead as those trees now .

I cut down only one tree on my property, ever. It was a box elder tree outside our kitchen. Our house was brick, and the sun would warm the brick. Box elder bugs love the warmth. Every year, the side of the house and the tree trunk would be covered with millions of these ugly fuckers. Hated to do it, but it had to be done.

Trees and neighbors-a volatile combination indeed.

rich people eating each other

[quote]rich people eating each other

Pics please.

We had a cherry tree on the edge of our property that may have been over 100 years old. Gorgeous tree. We had an arborist take care of it. Looked like the one below.

Approximately 1/5 of the tree hung over the property line. The neighbors in a condo next door had a designated parking spot beneath the tree where it hung over the low fence on the property line. They wanted us to trim the tree so that there were no branches over the property line because the birds in the tree were shitting on their (expensive) car and they wanted it stopped. Trim, as in cut off all the offending branches..

Legally, we supposed that they had the right to cut off all the branches on their side, though we were going to go to the town first. We tried to explain that their request, which may have been legal, was rather ridiculous and that bird shit could also randomly land on their car any place in the (treed) neighborhood, but they weren't having it. We tried explaining that the parking lot of the food store also had big trees but that didn't land either. They had already hired a company to "trim" the tree, and we only found. out what they were planning because they also complained to other neighbors living next door that were our friends.

We persuaded the arborist to come and talk to them without us being there since we were livid and somehow the arborist talked them out of their request and guaranteed that some judicious trimming would serve their car's interests. We tipped the arborist big time.

We're still afraid that one day we will come home and the tree will be amputated. They can beg for forgiveness because they hadn't gotten approval, but the tree would still be destroyed.

I don't know if this had anything to do with their request - though we suspected it did - but they were A Gays. A particular type of personality. Maybe we were unfairly projecting.

So, it was legal, but was it a realistic request? Bird shit?

R39 Sorry to break it to you, but yes - it was a realistic request and they would get their wishes if they pushed for it. It's their side of the property line, and if they think these branches were hindering the enjoyment of their property for any reason at all - it's realistic to them.

The subject of OP's post isn't a World Heritage site, but...

[quote]Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers set out on a dark and stormy night in 2023 to carry out what a prosecutor called a “moronic mission,” and toppled the majestic sycamore onto Hadrian’s Wall.

[quote]Graham, 39, and Carruthers, 32, were each convicted of two counts of criminal damage — one for destroying the tree, the other for damaging the ancient wall that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

[...]

[quote]Carruthers said he drank a bottle of whisky after a rough day and everything was a blur, Lambert said. While Graham admitted he had joined Carruthers on the journey, he said he was shocked that his former friend had actually cut the tree down.

We had to cut down 7 trees on our property in order to install solar on our roof. BUT they were "trash trees" like swamp maple and a couple gigantic tulip trees (which are very soft wood and lose limbs in any big wind storm).

In return we planted 15 new trees elsewhere on the property, so I feel better about it.

Oh my

r41 I remember people were blaming immigrants for that one. Some Afrasian kid went up there and chopped it down because he hates English heritage.

I'd put something up to ruin the view. I'd have people over constantly to make noise when his realtor is showing the house and very loud music would play all day, everyday.

R17, I don't know you are going on about regarding asking permission?? Asking permission to destroy people's property isn't something decent people do. These p. eople (the scumbag in the article & your brother in law) , broke the law. They trespassed and then destroyed expensive property that didn't belong to them.