Billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is angering neighbors with the privacy settings he’s building at his Hawaii vacation property.
Zuckerberg is building a 6-foot-tall wall around his waterfront property on the island of Kauai, and his neighbors in Kilauea say it is blocking their ocean views and breezes, West Hawaii Today reported Tuesday.
“The feeling of it is really oppressive. It is immense,” neighbor Gy Hall said.
Neighbors told the Hawaii newspaper they are also upset that he began construction without first consulting them and that they written to Zuckerberg but received no reply. Hall said that signs placed on the wall explaining the neighbors’ concerns were quickly ripped down.
Shosana Chantara, a Kilauea resident, said the wall is blocking air circulation.
“You take a solid wall that’s 10 or more feet above the road level, the breeze can’t go through,” she said.
Another neighbor, Donna McMillen, said: “I’m 5-foot-8 and when I’m walking, I see nothing but wall. It just doesn’t fit in with the natural beauty that we have here.”
Zuckerberg, 32, purchased the 700-acre Hawaii estate for $200 million in 2014. He is the sixth richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine’s most recent ranking of billionaires, as well as the world’s wealthiest Jewish person.
Maria Maitino, another Kilauea resident, told the Hawaii paper that she doesn’t understand why the wall is so high, adding it “doesn’t feel neighborly.”
Neighbor Thomas Beebe, however, defended the wall in a text message to West Hawaii Today, saying it “appropriately makes use of local materials and serves as a tasteful reminder of an ancient method of defining boundaries.”
It’s not clear when construction will be done or whether it will encircle the entire property, and Zuckerberg has not commented on it.
He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced in December that they will donate 99 percent of their Facebook shares over the course of their lifetimes.
