The massive mansion a tech billionaire wants to build towering over a historic ski town is a series of steel and concrete boxes.
Cloudfare founder Matthew Prince, 49, has spent the past year trying to ram his 11,300sqft monstrosity through local bureaucrats in Park City, Utah.
His tactics included hiring lobbyists to sneak an amendment to an affordable housing bill in the Utah legislature to override local planning rules.
Prince, worth $3.4 billion, also bought the local paper and gave its new editor free housing, and sued neighbors who objected to his plan by claiming their dogs, Sasha and Mocha, were vicious.
The massive mansion a tech billionaire wants to build towering over a historic ski town is a series of steel and concrete boxes
The mansion is 3,500sqft with an unspecified number of rooms that towers 4-and-a-half stories high including two below the hill’s incline and the roof extends 117ft at 30 to 33ft height
Cloudfare founder Matthew Prince, 49, (pictured with his wife Tatiana) has spent the past year trying to ram his 11,300sqft monstrosity through local bureaucrats in Park City, Utah .
Townsfolk who oppose his plans call him a ‘bully’ and the ‘most hated man in Park City’ due to how he went about seeking building approval.
The mansion is 3,500sqft with an unspecified number of rooms that towers 4-and-a-half stories high including two below the hill’s incline and the roof extends 117ft at 30 to 33ft height.
A driveway, parking area, and turnaround wide enough for fire trucks, and a separate home office bring the total to 11,300sqft.
The Park City Planning Commission in February approved the mansion with some alterations, but some locals are appealing the 4-2 decision.
The most prominent are Eric and Susan Hermann, the 71-year-old and 68-year-old owners of a $11.5 million mansion next door.
A driveway, parking area, and turnaround wide enough for fire trucks, and a separate home office bring the total to 11,300sqft
The Park City Planning Commission in February approved the mansion with some alterations, but some locals are appealing the 4-2 decision
How the mansion would look towering above the historic ski town
Prince last month sued the couple claiming a rock wall coming from their home crosses the property line into the vacant lot he bought last March.
The pair have emerged as two of Prince’s fiercest adversaries in the ongoing property fight, filing an appeal this past month after Prince received approval.
They argue his proposal violates zoning laws – a declaration eight others in the neighborhood, including some friends, have rallied behind. They also say he purposely bought a second patch of land after the first suit so he could file a second.
Within days, Prince filed suit against the couple over the behavior of their Bernese Mountain dogs, calling them ‘menacing’.
‘I get that we’re rich a**holes, but at some level I’m also a father and I have to protect my daughter,’ Prince told the Wall Street Journal.
Prince last month sued the couple claiming a rock wall coming from their home crosses the property line into the vacant lot he bought last March. These two maps appear to conflict
A sketch of the side of the building showing the house against the incline of the hill and the basement underneath
Price claimed the two dogs menaced his 82-year-old mother and ‘barked, snarled and charged’ at his toddler.
The Hermanns said he never asked them to leash their dogs before the filing, and that ‘the dogs have had no interaction with the Princes’.
Since the fight erupted about the two pooches, locals have came out in support of Sasha and Mocha, making ‘Free Sasha & Mocha’ stickers.
The stickers began appearing on signs, fence posts and car bumpers around the city.
Blaire Dernach, a local bartender, described the dogs as being ‘big, fluffy and beautiful.’
The owners said they had never received such a complaint before, and claim they are being ‘harassed’ with the second suit.
Neighbors Eric Hermann and Susan Fredston-Hermann argue his proposal violates zoning laws – a declaration eight others in the neighborhood have rallied behind
Within days, Prince filed suit against the couple over the behavior of their Bernese Mountain dogs, calling them ‘menacing’
Attorney Bruce Baird, the lawyer representing Prince, called the rock wall lawsuit a ‘simple property dispute’.
In an interview back in March, Prince – who in 2017 wed ex-banker Tatiana Prince – conceded the couple’s opposition was a factor in his decision to file the lawsuit over their dogs.
Claiming the canines are often unleashed and uncontrolled, the Cloudflare kingpin who’s worth a reported $3.4 billion appeared to make light of the legal fight.
‘I think it’s pretty reasonable that at some point you say enough is enough. Especially if they’re kind of suing you, or at least appealing your ability to build a house,’ he told The Daily Beast, referring to the two dogs, Sasha and Mocha.
‘This is essentially just two rich people fighting with each other, which is silly, but here we are,’ he added, now claiming a wall illegally encroaches on his property.
Prince’s complaint against the pups claims the dogs, each weighs over 100 pounds, have aggressively chased and harassed those nearby, and alleges the Hermanns often walk the dogs unleashed on the trail that runs along the perimeter of the Prince property.
The wall belongs to the 71-year-old and 68-year-old Hermanns, who also own this $11.5million mansion. The pair have thus emerged as two of Prince’s fiercest adversaries in an ongoing property fight, filing an appeal this past month after Prince received approval to break ground
The Cloudflare kingpin – who’s worth a reported $3.4billlion – moved to Park City from the Bay Area after the pandemic
That, the couple claims, comes in direct violation of Park City code – with the complaint also calling the Hermanns ‘elderly and frail,’ claiming they are not physically capable of controlling the dogs.
A friend of the Hermanns who is familiar with the animals said those claims are bogus – calling the couple far from frail.
‘I’ve known the Hermann’s[sic] for most of my life and can confidently say that they are anything but ‘frail’,’ Park City resident Sam Owen wrote in a reply to an Instagram post sharing recent town news.
‘In fact they are two of the most active people, anyone who actually knows them would say the same.
‘I’ve known Sasha and Mocha since they were puppies,’ she went on, before honing in on the ‘menacing’ claims.
‘They are the most friendly and welcoming dogs to everyone they meet,’ she said. ‘Neither are aggressive in any way.’
Prince claims the rock wall (circled) crosses the property line between the lot he bought a few weeks ago and the lot next door. The Hermanns say he purposely bought the lot a few weeks ago out of spite
Trying to circumvent the process by sneaking an amendment into a Utah law was one of Prince’s earliest tactics back in early 2023.
Cloudfare hired lobbying firm Lincoln Shurtz on February 17 and the amendment appeared in the affordable housing bill the same day.
Representative Doug Owens spotted the amendment and brought it up during debate last March,
‘Is there anything in this that came out of another bill this morning that relates to the placement of allowing a specific resident in Park City to bypass local authority for the construction of a home?’ he asked.
House Speaker Brad Wilson rolled his eyes as representatives shouted down the amendment, then bizarrely declared it was passed – then calling a vote where it failed 42-30 and was stripped out.
Weeks later, Prince bought the Park Record, which was Park City’s biggest local newspaper and installed Don Rogers to edit it.
Rogers has since then lived rent-free in one of Prince’s other properties in the area.
Price wed his wife in 2017, with the pair since purchasing local publication the Park Record. The neighborhood appeal is set for review by Park City’s three member appeal panel on April 30, after which the matter will be settled
The coverage of the fight over his mansion suddenly changed to being both frequent and extremely positive.
The paper fawningly quoted Prince saying the project was ‘something to be proud of’ and attacked its critics – even the entire national news media in a recent editorial.
The incredibly one-sided piece brought up Hermanns’ history as a ‘debt vulture’ in the UK and accused the media of ignoring it to focus on bashing Prince for the dogs lawsuit.
‘Coverage of the house and the feud between the ski town titans has been described with varying degrees of breathless inaccuracy, innuendo and incompleteness by the larger press having fun,’ Rogers wrote.
‘It all has the feel of middle school, entertainment like Mean Girls.’
