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, mastadon, and brightly-colored mushrooms.

Drawing effusive fans and vitriolic haters far and wide, the 1976 home was the brainchild of architect William Nicholson, who designed the multiple-domed home while experimenting with unconventional 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 a 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, wrote Hillsborough attorney Mark Hudak in a complaint filed earlier this 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, he wrote. Some of those improvements created life-safety 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, 2018 decision and order from the town’s administrative panel, Tim Anderson, Hillsborough’s building official, said that due to 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 that needed to be removed unless there was prior approval by city officials, the order stated.

The iconic home along Interstate 280, often referred to as the Flintstone House, sold last year for $2.8 million. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) 

It didn’t help that the improvements Fang made on her property were “far outside the norms observed by panel members throughout the town,” according to the order.

“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.”

Poster Comment:

Comments from the site:

If this is an eyesore, you have have entitlement issues - look away and run along, preferably down a cliff. I don't tell people what to do on their land and if they tell me what to do on mine, they better watch out. People continue to insist on controlling everyone else in the Bay Area. Get over yourself.

My comment: Looks like the so-called California "commies" have a better understanding of property rights many than the self-professed "conservatives" here do.

You couldn't even see it if you lived next door. The only way you see her backyard is if you are driving ~65Mph down 280.

Satellite view

Street view