YABBA DABBA SUED
Hillsborough: Town files a lawsuit against the owner of the iconic Flintstone House, declaring the structure a ‘public nuisance’
HILLSBOROUGH » It’s a big Yabba Dabba Don’t for this Hillsborough home.
Calling it a “highly visible eyesore” and “out of keeping with community standards,” Hillsborough planning and building officials are asking a judge to officially declare the iconic Flintstone House a “public nuisance,” and they want a recently erected metal menagerie of prehistoric animals, along with other features, removed.
Media mogul Florence Fang purchased the property in 2017 and quickly got to work remaking the backyard with a herd of 15-foot dinosaurs, plus a giraffe, mastodon and brightly colored mushrooms.
Drawing effusive fans and vitriolic haters far and wide, the 1976 house was the brainchild of architect William Nicholson, who designed the multiple-domed structure while experimenting with uncon-
ventional building materials and construction techniques. It includes a “biologic” kitchen designed by architect Eugene Tsui, a game room, a conversation pit, and three bedrooms, including one with a loft.
The house has been called everything from a “pile of dung” to a “wonderful escape from the mundane.”
But Fang’s remodeling work, which began in late 2017 and continued into 2018, didn’t end with whimsical figurines or a “Yabba Dabba Do” sign, Hillsborough attorney Mark Hudak wrote in a complaint filed last week with the San Mateo Superior Court. A representative for Fang did not return a request for comment.
Fang also installed a retaining wall, steps, columns, gates, a parking strip and a deck, Hudak wrote. Some of those improvements created lifesafety hazards, including a staircase without a handrail, that required immediate correction, he argued in the court filing.
The town issued stop work orders, but Fang continued to make improvements without the requisite permits, Hudak said in the filing.
In an October decision and order from the town’s administrative panel, Tim Anderson, Hillsborough’s building official, said that because of their height, some of the prehistoric metal animals qualified as “unenclosed structures” and required planning approval and a building permit.
Similarly, the sign, artificial turf and smaller figurines classified as landscape improvements needed to be removed unless there was prior approval by city officials, the order stated.
It didn’t help that the improvements Fang made on her property were “far outside the norms observed by panel members throughout the town,” the order says.
“These landscaping improvements are prominent and visible from public rights of way, including (Interstate) 280 and Berryessa Way, and from other properties in Hillsborough,” it reads. “They are designed to be very intrusive, resulting in the owner’s ‘vision’ for her property being imposed on many other properties and views, without regard to the desires of other residents.”
Now, town officials are asking a judge to enforce the order for Fang to remove the antediluvian animals, officially declare the property a public nuisance, reimburse the town for the suit and award any “further relief as the court deems just and proper.”