Palm Beach mega-mansion owners duke it out in new lawsuit

Alleging harassment, Palm Beach mansion owner Lamia Jacobs has filed a lawsuit against her next-door neighbor.

Jacobs, who lives at 100 Emerald Beach Way, said former Goldman Sachs partner John Thornton, at neighboring 1236 South Ocean Boulevard, is behind an alleged “campaign of bullying and harassment.”

She filed suit this month in Palm Beach County court, according to the Palm Beach Daily News.

According to the suit, Jacobs, who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, alleges that “the Thorntons have allowed dogs to run wild on their property, barking at great volume and length,” and lists an instance when the Thortons’ called the police on her staff.

Jacobs, a former oil trader and founder of bistro chain Sugar & Plumm, purchased her nearly 17,300-square-foot Palm Beach home in 2002 for $17.5 million. Records show she later refinanced her home-away-from-home with a $10 million loan in 2015.

Thorton’s more than 32,300-square-foot mansion is one of the highest-dollar sales in Palm Beach, according to the Palm Beach Daily News. Records show Thorton purchased his home for $77.5 million in 2008, when the housing market crashed. He also paid $9 million for a vacant lot at 200 Emerald Beach Way, right between Jacobs’ property and South Ocean Boulevard.

The bad blood goes back to at least 2014, when the Thorntons filed suit against Jacobs demanding she tear down a concrete seawall that blocked their beach access. Jacobs is also appealing a recent decision from the town’s Architectural Commission to approve two new tennis courts on the Thorntons’ six-acre property. [Palm Beach Daily News] – Amanda Rabines