Major remodel of $117 million Woodside mansion remains in limbo

This mansion in Woodside sold for $117.5 million; it is show in this image is from July 7, 2011. The image is taken from the back yard angle. (Photo from pictometry.com) (pictometry.com)

Unless a successful appeal is made to the Woodside Town Council, a major remodel of a $117.5 million mansion will remain stopped in its tracks.

That's because the town's planning commission split Thursday night on whether to allow work to proceed on the three-story house with four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a four-car garage, a swimming pool and a pool house on an 8.74-acre estate at 360 Mountain Home Road.

Last year, the town gave the owner permission to build one-story additions on each side of the main residence, expand the front entry, enlarge the basement and construct an addition to the pool house.

But when staff planners inspected the site on May 19, they found that "the entire first floor of the main residence was demolished," leaving the second and third floors of the building shored up on metal construction beams, according to a staff memo.

Because the planning commission voted 3-3 Thursday to approve a revised site design permit and 3-3 to reject the remodeling work, the stop-work order remains in place with the exception of some safety-related measures, Senior Planner Sage Schaan said.

So the ball now is in the court of the owner, listed on Woodside documents when the house sold in 2012 as "SV Projects LLC."

The applicant is expected to appeal the planning commission's decision to the Town Council, Schaan said.

Documents submitted to the town Wednesday by Van Acker Construction state that the town was told removal of "additional first floor framing was done for safety reasons based on recommendations from the applicant's structural engineer" and that some of the first-floor demolition was within the scope of a permit granted to expand the basement.

Representatives of the construction company could not be reached for comment Friday.

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Major remodel of $117 million Woodside mansion remains in limbo