NBCMiami.com:
The fight over tearing down the Star Island mansion owned by "Real Housewives of Miami" star Lisa Hochstein and her husband is over after activists opposed to the demolition dropped their fight.The Miami Design Preservation League announced Thursday that they were ending their legal efforts to preserve the home belonging to Hochstein and her husband, Lenny."Trying to make someone else's home historic against their wishes is not what we believe the city of Miami Beach stands for," Lenny Hochstein said.Thanks to the agreement, Hochstein is a giant step closer to building a house of his dreams, a 9-bedroom, 20,000-square-foot mansion to replace the dilapidated structure that the MDPL considers historic.Preservationists are appalled at the notion of tearing down the Star Island house, part of vanishing breed of South Florida homes that are being demolished and replaced with modern structures."It was featured in the New York Times in 1925, a story was done very recently in the New York Times. It has been acknowledged as one of the most important structures built by first registered architect of the State of Florida," preservationist Kent Robbins said.The Hochsteins won approval last year from the Miami Beach City Commission to tear down the house but the MDPL appealed. The group gave up its appeal, saying it couldn't waste the resources on the fight."It would have spent a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of resources, but at the end of the day the house would've been demolished," Robbins said."We feel that we have been made an example of, we feel like at times we have been treated unfairly, but we are very grateful to the mayor and city commission," Lenny Hochstein said.The two sides reached a deal that requires Hochstein to pay about $25,000 of the the MDPL's legal fees.
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