Beach battle in Malibu as billionaire accused of stealing sand for $30m home

In the posh city of Malibu, Barbie and Ken rollerblade, homes sell for up to $210m – and a billionaire is digging up the beach.

In a lawsuit filed last week, the local resident James Kohlberg alleges that his neighbor, the billionaire businessman and baseball team owner Mark Attanasio, has been using construction equipment to excavate Malibu’s Broad Beach and move sand on to his private property.

“This case is about a private property owner using a public beach as their own personal sandbox,” the suit claims.

Kohlberg, the son of the founder of the global investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Attanasio, who owns the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team, own homes that occupy a stretch of Malibu beach that has long struggled with erosion. In 2011, a local homeowners’ association began organizing a restoration project along Broad Beach, and in 2015 some of the neighborhood’s best known residents – including Dustin Hoffman, Ray Romano and Pierce Brosnan – contributed to a $31m sand replenishment and coastal restoration project.

In March, the lawsuit states, Attanasio obtained permits to repair a damaged section of seawall along the two adjacent properties he owns on Broad Beach – one a developed home, the other an empty lot. But in June, the construction team allegedly began using excavators, parked in the beach’s tidal and intertidal zones, to scoop sand out of the public beach and on to Attanasio’s private property. The 132-page legal document includes more than a dozen photographs of excavators and bulldozers shoveling sand across the shoreline.

In a statement to the Guardian, Attanasio’s attorney, Kenneth A Ehrlich, said his company, 2XMD Partners, is in compliance with its permits. He said: “2XMD and its principals have owned property on this beach for decades and have served as stewards for beach restoration and preservation of natural resources.”

He added that it “is in the midst of a fully-permitted emergency repair of the property to protect it from ocean forces”.

The Guardian contacted attorneys for Kohlberg for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

Although Kohlberg’s attorney approached the California Coastal Commission in July to report the project, no action was taken to require Attanasio cease construction, the lawsuit claims. It adds that the construction equipment leaked gasoline onto the beach and ocean, and restricted access to the public area. All beaches are public in California.

The lawsuit accuses Attanasio of public nuisance, private nuisance and violation of the California Coastal Act – a 1976 state law that governs the development, preservation and public access of California’s coastline. And Kohlberg has asked the court to see that construction is immediately halted, the sand is replaced, and fines are issued.

California’s coastline has faced rapid erosion as a result of the climate crisis. This year alone saw a section of the state’s historic Highway 1 collapse following heavy rains in April, and in May, owners of multimillion dollar homes in San Clemente and Dana Point watched and waited as landslides threatened to plunge their beachside homes into the ocean.

According to a 2023 study, between 25% and 70% of California beaches could be washed away by the end of the century.

A case management conference is currently scheduled for February at Los Angeles county superior court in Beverly Hills, a similarly genteel – if less scenic – location for these billionaires to continue battling it out.