Josh Friedman, the Canyon Capital hedge fund honcho whose income Forbes pegged at $150 million last year, is fast becoming unpopular with neighbors in posh Montecito, Calif.
Neighbors are fed up with the traffic, noise and pollution from the two-years-and-counting renovation of the old estate he bought for $19.5 million. To say nothing of the old oak trees Friedman has destroyed.
Complaints have done nothing to lessen the noise as Friedman upgrades his 10,000-square-foot, nine-bedroom mansion and guest houses that were built in the ’30s.
“We are sick and tired of people from Beverly Hills and beyond coming to laid back Montecito for our quiet, understated lifestyle only to have them cluelessly destroy the sanctity of our neighborhood,” a cranky local told me.
The neighbors better brace themselves. Pool work is on hold due to the current drought, but digging on a 3,000-square-foot basement and a trellised tennis viewing pavilion roars on.