Embattled surgeon Ben Brown sold his $2.4M Gulf Breeze home and left the new… | Latest Lifestyle News
The new owner of a Gulf Breeze home purchased from embattled plastic surgeon Dr. Ben Brown may be permitted to keep a pool enclosure that was illegally installed before the home went to market.
Warren Sonnen, the son of Derek Sonnen, who had purchased the property, was forced to appear before the Santa Rosa County Zoning Board Sept. 11 to request a variance allowing him to keep the enclosure.
The Zoning Board granted the variance by a 7-2 vote and, if the County Commission goes along with the Zoning Board decision, Sonnen will not be compelled to tear down the enclosure and rebuild it to county standards.
Brown was residing at the Madura Road address in June of 2024 when he was arrested and charged with manslaughter by culpable negligence in connection with the death of his wife.
His wife, 33-year-old Hillary Ellington Brown, went into cardiac arrest in November 2023 while Brown was performing several procedures on her in his office, Restore Plastic Surgery, in the Tiger Point area of Gulf Breeze. She never regained consciousness and died about a week later when her family made the difficult decision to take her off life support.
Court records show Brown filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 28, 2024.
Brown sold his home the Gulf Breeze home in July for $2.4 million property appraiser records show.
There were questions raised by Zoning Board members at the Thursday meeting about whether it had been the contractor who had skirted county regulations or whether Brown himself had directed the rules be ignored.
“The contractor could have pulled the wool over the owner’s eyes, but if the owner did it I would really not be happy with that,” member Rhonda Royals said.
Records indicate that an unnamed contractor had gone to the Planning and Zoning Department in 2022 and requested to be allowed to build a pool enclosure behind the waterfront home at 3995 West Madura Road with a 36-foot shoreline protection setback requirement.
Such setbacks are established to protect against erosion and storm damage and county regulations require a 50-foot setback.
The contractor was turned down for the 36-foot setback and returned to the county with drawings for a 50-foot setback that were accepted. He then went back and built the enclosure as originally planned with the 36-foot setback and never submitted a request to have an inspection to approve the final work product.
A title company found an open permit for the screen enclosure only after Brown decided to attempt to sell the property, county Planning and Development Director Shawn Ward said.
Ward confirmed that the developer had turned in both the setback plans that were rejected and those that were approved. But Zoning Board Chairman Ed Carson, who works as a contractor, questioned how a homeowner would not have insisted on seeing completed plans after a project of the magnitude of the pool enclosure was conducted.
A woman who identified herself as the agent who had acted on Brown’s behalf to sell the home told the board that $30,000 had been set aside by the seller to cover the cost of replacing the pool enclosure.
She said that she had attempted to contact the contractor by phone, text and email and received no response.
Board member Frankie Gibbs said the entire pool enclosure ordeal had troubled him. He said while he understands the need for the county to strictly adhere to its own rules and regulations, he also didn’t think that the new Madura Road homeowner should be punished.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to hold the new buyer responsible,” he said in motioning that the variance request be approved.
The majority of the Zoning Board accepted his rationale, with Carson and member Aaron Williams voting against allowing the variance.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Indicted Gulf Breeze doctor’s sold home creates a Zoning Board dilemma
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