Wall of Hostilities : It Triggers a Dispute That Knows No Boundaries in Orange Neighborhood

ORANGE —  My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Robert Frost, Mending Wall, 1914 The LazyCreek Homeowner’s Assn., now on the hook for $150,000 in legal fees because of a dispute over a $4,000 wall, isn’t likely to name Robert Frost its poet laureate.

The association’s troubles began three years ago, when Rex and Nancy Vance, who have a pool and two Rottweilers, built a wall for the safety of the neighbors’ children, they said. The association deemed the wall architecturally inappropriate and ordered them to tear it down.

That triggered a legal fight which generated 10 volumes of legal documents and seemed to end, finally, when an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled in the Vances’ favor and ordered the association to pay their legal fees.

The decision resulted in resignations of all five of the association directors who initiated the suit. Five months later, however, the dispute continues to generate volleys of letters among members of the horsy neighborhood of million-dollar homes on one-acre lots.

“In retrospect,” the Vances wrote last week in a letter to all association members, “we wish we never had to go through the misery of this . . . lawsuit that pitted neighbor against neighbor.”

Reminding their fellow association members that the $150,000 awarded them would have to be paid, the Vances recounted the dispute in five, single-spaced pages. The detailed chronology included several “downright degrading” experiences, one of which required the couple to undergo a daylong psychiatric evaluation.

Both sides in the dispute still maintain that they did what they thought was right, which may account for the tenacity of the fight. The Vances say they built the six-foot block wall on the dividing line between their back yard and that of former Rams quarterback Vince Ferragamo out of neighborly concern. The Vances said they felt that the existing wrought-iron fence--with bars five inches apart--did not provide sufficient protection for the Ferragamos’ children and dog from their own pool and dogs.

“We were concerned for safety,” Nancy Vance said.

Observing what they believed to be similar walls in the neighborhood, they built the 90-foot-long wall, which is barely visible from the street.

However, the Vances acknowledge that they did not first get permission to build the wall from the architectural committee of the association, as required under the association’s conditions, covenants and restrictions.

When the Ferragamos pointed out the wall to the association, members came out to inspect it and, ultimately, ordered the Vances to tear it down.

“We feel we were punished for not asking for permission,” Nancy Vance said.

But former board member Anita Ney said: “Permission was not that relevant.” The wall was “visible and ugly, and we didn’t want to set precedent.”

The Vances, who have lived in their home for nine years, offered to landscape the wall to hide it from the Ferragamos, although they refused to tear it down.

So the association sued the Vances and the Vances sued back.

“They could have torn it down, but somebody needed to take a stand,” said the Vances’ attorney, James F. McGee.

“The Constitution of the United States does not go away when you move into this neighborhood,” Nancy Vance said.

As the cases moved to court, Vince and Jodi Ferragamo wrote to the association: “Frankly, we are tired of the whole situation and want it ended. If the status of the Vances’ wall rested on us, then it should have been settled between us without expensive legal opinions.”

But as the “vehemence” of the dispute escalated, McGee acknowledged that the suit “took on a life of its own.”

After a three-week jury trial, Judge David C. Velasquez ruled that the wall could stand and that the association would have to reimburse the Vances for the $150,000 in legal fees they paid their lawyer.

Even McGee said that it was “hard to accept that there was some reasonable relationship between the amount at issue and the amount of fees.”

Stanley Feldsott, the association’s attorney who specializes in such cases, agreed that “it doesn’t make any sense. . . . From what was involved from a financial standpoint, you’d be hard-pressed to justify the expense.”

Even Robert Frost was aware the subject of neighborly boundaries was a controversial one, concluding in his same poem, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”