$20m Coast mansion sits rotting away

6:01a.m. 29th March 2007

Lloyd Laity

By Kathy Sundstrom

QUEENSLANDS most expensive private home which has already had a conservative $20 million spent on it has been lying idle and incomplete for nearly 18 months.

Construction on Buderims Riverview Avenue mansion stopped in October, 2005, when American-born owner Ron Miller baulked at the bills from Buderim builder and designer Kate Dillon.

Ms Dillon and Mr Miller have been fighting through solicitors. She has been trying to recoup the seven figure sums she had allegedly already spent on the property.

And neighbours are upset and angry.

Neighbour Lloyd Laity wished his neighbour would just hurry up and finish the big cream coloured monster.

Mr Laity was one of four neighbours who spent up to $60,000 on a failed court bid to get the property demolished last year.

The home has haunted the neighbourhood ever since construction started in 2004 on an extension to the existing property.

Its first room was a metre-thick concrete-reinforced nuclear-style bunker bedded into Buderim mountain bedrock.

Mr Laity and other neighbours in Riverview Avenue took the 14 two-bedroom apartment block size extension to the Queensland Tribunal in February, 2005, as they argued that the western wall did not need to comply with planning requirements.

They could do little to stop what neighbour Jorg Herrmann described as a hospital wing-style 49m monstrosity which had destroyed some of their wall.

The western wall was modified slightly, but this did not stop the noisy construction that bugged the entire neighbourhood.

Andrew Hutchinson and Mark Lindsay who live in the street below the property told the Daily in August, 2005 they had unsuccessfully complained to everyone from their local councillor to Premier Peter Beattie in a bid to get some peace and quiet with construction crews arriving at 6.15am.

Then in October, 2005 with the neighbourhood court action pending it seemed their wish had been fulfilled with all works coming to an abrupt end.

But Ms Dillon said it was not the court case that put an end to construction it was simply she was waiting to get paid.

The judge ruled in favour of the home and with the court case now history, Mr Laity wishes Mr Miller would hurry up and get it finished.

It is an ugly building anyway, but the construction stuff is still up, he said.

Mr Laity thought the works were about to begin again when he saw a builder arrive on site a few months ago.

But that builder appears to have disappeared too.

It is bad enough that its there, but now he must get it finished. There is no landscaping it is a great big cream coloured monster thats stolen my view.

Mr Laity said he still sometimes saw Mr Miller visit the original home. Ms Dillon refused to comment as she was still in negotiations and Mr Millers solicitor Brisbane firm Hopgood and Ganim has also declined to comment.

We advise that the dispute between Mr Miller and Ms Dillon has not been settled.