An appeals court this month sided with the Montecito Club and ordered the property’s neighbors to return a club-owned easement back to its original state. 

The neighbors’ lawyers representing them in the appeal did not respond to a Noozhawk request for comment. 

Leila Noël, a partner with Cappello & Noël LLP, which represented the private golf and social club, said in a statement: “The defendants now have lost twice in court. … It’s time for them to remove the encroaching hardscaping and landscaping, and restore the property to its previous condition.”

The club at 920 Summit Road is owned by Beanie Babies billionaire Ty Warner. It initially filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the neighboring property owners, Kevin and Jeannette Root, alleging that the pair in 2020 had made changes without permission to an easement owned by the club.  

The club and the Roots’ backyard were separated by a large oleander hedge and a chain-link fence near holes 13 and 14 on the club’s golf course when the Roots bought their property in 2015, according to court documents.

Along the southern side of that property is an easement owned by the club. A trail used for a cart path and greenskeeper truck was initially located there; the club rerouted that path sometime around 2015 during club-wide renovations and replaced it with native vegetation, per court documents. 

In 2018, the Roots asked the club if they could remove the hedge — which now had rats inside — plant a new one in a different location along their property line, and landscape on the easement that once hosted the cart path.

The Roots’ insurance company offered to pay the club $50,000 for the easement. The club declined.

Court documents detail some dispute as to what happened next. 

A club employee said he told the Roots during a later meeting they could replace the hedge with a new one, but it would have to be located in the same spot. Kevin Root and the Roots’ contractor said the club employee confirmed that the hedge could be moved onto the Roots’ property line.

The Roots removed the old hedge and planted a new one along their property line in 2020. They also put in a 4-foot-high retaining wall and graded the area, according to court documents.

The landscaping cost them roughly $300,000.

The club sent the Roots a cease-and-desist in early 2021 and filed a lawsuit in Santa Barbara County Superior Court later that year. 

In 2024, Judge Donna Geck ruled in the club’s favor after a trial. Geck ordered the couple to remove the landscaping and hardscaping from the easement and restore it to how it looked before.