Woodside Town Council to decide if remodel of $117.5 million mansion proceeds

The Woodside Town Council tonight is to consider allowing the owner of a $117 million mansion to resume a remodeling job that planning commissioners essentially stopped.

John Hanna, an attorney representing the mansion's anonymous owner, has appealed the planning commission's 3-3 vote on July 31 that put the project on hold.

The owner contends that a planning commissioner who couldn't attend the July 31 meeting had indicated in advance she would have voted to let the remodeling proceed.

The three-story house on an 8.74-acre lot at 360 Mountain Home Road has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a four-car garage, a swimming pool and a pool house.

The town last year permitted the owner 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 had been demolished, and partial demolition for the second and third floors had also been completed," according to a staff memo.

On July 2, the town ordered construction work to cease until a revised plan could be approved by the town.

Representatives of the owner told planning commissioners the demolition was done for safety reasons, as recommended by a structural engineer. They also noted that there otherwise could have been waterproofing problems between the old and new walls and that the owner wanted to seismically upgrade the home.

But some commissioners said they felt the project had moved far past the simple remodel called for in the application.

However, those who favored issuing a demolition permit noted that it would enable the mansion to look the same from the outside.

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Woodside Town Council to decide if remodel of $117.5 million mansion proceeds