There once were some trees on Nantucket...

I'm pretty sure that the first law of owning near-the-water property is that, if you have any degrees of separation from a water view, you do not want anyone's damned trees blocking that view.

My brother Tom lives in Ocean Park, Washington (something of the Cape Cod of Portland, Oregon). He and his wife weren't part of the fray - they're up a hill with a great, unimpeded view of the Pacific. But a couple of years back, there was some rager about someone's trees getting in the way of someone else's great, unimpeded view.

And just about this time last year, Pink Slip was looking at some bad neighbors in the ritzy town of Camden, Maine, who decided to poison the trees on the property of the house just down the hill from theirs. What made this crime especially interesting was that the bad neighbors were blowins from the Midwest who apparently didn't realize that the last thing you want to do in the State of Maine is poison the trees of the granddaughter of L.L. Bean.

Anyway, the latest out, out, damned tree saga is taking place on Nantucket, where Patricia Belford is suing Jonathan Jacoby for taking a chainsaw to sixteen trees on her property so he could enhance his ocean view. The trees destroyed in the Nantuckey Chainsaw Massacre - cherry, cedar, Leland cypress - were planted fifty years ago by the Belford family, and stood thirty feet tall. But Jacoby wanted his home (valued at roughly $10M) to have a better view, so...

Jacoby did the deed while Patricia Belford and her husband Richard were away. Well away: at a senior living facility in Florida. Jacoby claims that he had verbal permission - how convenient - but the Belfords say hell no to that.  

Belford is suing for negligence, property damage, personal injury, and trespassing. Court documents do not specify how much she is seeking in damages.

Property damage at 1 Tautemo Way, to date, is estimated at more than $486,000, according to court documents.

It would cost $22,114 to buy and transport one 30-foot-tall Leyland cypress, not including planting it, which would require a special contractor, the lawsuit said. (Source: Boston Globe)

But it's not just the money, honey. Jacoby has been charged with felony vandalism, trespass, and unlawful destruction. This could land him in prison for three years. 

What an a-hole.

Anyway, the story has a bit of a relative-adjacent twist. 

Once this story broke, folks (including this folk) were interested in learning about just who this Jonathan Jacoby louse was. And most of the sleuthing folks (including this sleuthing folk) found a Jonathan Jacoby who's a Managing Director at Blackstone, a mega-private equity firm. Given Blackstone's reputation as a rapacious, soul-sucking PE, it was no surprise that many of the don't-really-need-to-know sleuthing folks (including this don't-really-need-to-know sleuthing folk) made the leap to concluding that Blackstone's Jonathan Jacoby was the miscreant. After all, it did seem to foot.

While all this was brewing, I happened to see my relation who's brother-in-law works for Blackstone and has a home on Nantucket, of all places. So naturally, I asked her about the tree-cutting brouhaha. She's an out-of-towner, and wasn't familiar with the slaughter of all those innocent trees, but she was heading to Nantucket to visit her sister and BIL, so...

Shortly after her arrival on Nantucket, she emailed me to tell me that Blackstone's Jonathan Jacoby is NOT the chainsaw maniac. In fact, Blackstone's Jacoby has never even been to Nantucket, and according to her BIL to be a very nice guy. Who, guilty by name association, has been on the receiving end of all sorts of crap, to the extent that he had to take down his LinkedIn profile and other social media. And Blackstone jumped in to help with reputation management.

Another blackmark against the Internet, and against us (gulp) nosey-parker searchers. At least I didn't do anything with this bit of bad data. Which is not to say that I wouldn't have done a j'accuse in this post if I hadn't happen to have seen my relation with the Blackstone BIL. Thank God, because I would have felt terrible. I'm usually pretty careful about sourcing info, so maybe I wouldn't have mentioned the Blackstone angle if I hadn't seen a verified source on Jacoby's employment. Still, it's a good reminder to be careful out there/on here.

Meanwhile, there once were some trees on Nantucket. And thanks to the bad Jonathan Jacoby, they're no longer there.

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Image Source: Nantucket Current