Million-dollar home with ocean view: Built on wrong plot

Five bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms, a theater, game room and swimming pool, will have to go

A Florida builder is trying to figure out what to do after constructing a million-dollar, ocean-view home in Florida on the wrong lot, authorities said.

The mistake occurred after two state-certified surveyors on the job separately marked the wrong property, said Carl Laundrie, spokesman for Flagler County on the Atlantic Coast north of Daytona Beach.

Laundrie said there were few landmarks in the new Hammock Dunes subdivision that could have helped someone catch the error.

"There is no giant oak tree on one corner of the lot so you would say, okay, this must be the lot. This particular piece of land is basically in a field back behind the dune," Laundrie said.

The 5,300-square-foot (492-sq-meter) house, which was completed in March, includes five bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms, a theater, game room and swimming pool, according to gotoby.com, a local real estate news site.

Mark and Brenda Voss of Linn, Missouri, who had the home built, did not return calls for comment, nor did Andrew Massaro and Brooke Triplett of Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, who own the lot.

The Vosses own the lot next door to the one on which the house was built.

Flagler County Property Appraiser Jay Gardner said the mistake was discovered in September by a third surveyor working in the neighborhood.

The builder, Robbie Richmond of Keystone Homes, who the real estate website described as one of the area's most respected builders, did not return a call for comment. 



Flagler County Property Appraiser Jay Gardner said he spoke to Richmond.

"All he wants to do is get it right," Gardner said.

Representatives of the surveying companies on the project also did not return calls for comment.

"It's up to the builder to rectify the situation, and the builder relied on the surveyor. I assume everything is going to be headed to court,{" said Laundrie.

Gardner said he hadn't spoken to the Vosses, but that Massaro was calm when informed of the problem.

'He wasn't tickled but he seemed to handle it quite well," Gardner said. "It happens from time to time."