After years of litigation, Lake Minnetonka mansion with 'Garage Mahal' gets to stay

After years of legal battles that pitted several high profile Minnesotans against each other, the ruling is finally in: The Lake Minnetonka mansion with what neighbors call the "Garage Mahal" gets to stay.

In 2021, former Vikings star linebacker Chad Greenway and his wife, Jenni, joined with former UnitedHealth Group executive Ken Ehlert and his wife, Wendy, to sue their neighbors and the city of Wayzata over environmental concerns and zoning regulations about a newly constructed home on Wayzata Bay. The house, they argued, was too close to the lakeshore.

Those neighbors, whose new home sat between the Greenways and Ehlerts, are Tom and Cindy Redmond — Tom is an entrepreneur and heir to the Aussie shampoo fortune; Cindy runs Redmond Real Estate, which specializes in luxury home sales in the west metro.

Hennepin County Judge Edward T. Wahl ruled late last month that the Redmonds had followed all environmental rules and acquired all necessary permits in building their 8,300-square-foot home and 1,600-square-foot detached garage, which currently has a market value of $11.3 million, according to county property assessment records.

All claims by the Greenways and Ehlerts were denied and dismissed with prejudice.

"These neighbors had been watching the home be built over two and a half years," said William Skolnick, the attorney representing the Redmond's LLC in the case. "It's not like we woke up and this was there ... and my clients were very diligent of notifying the neighbors of when something was going to happen on the construction site and have as little inconvenience on the neighbors as possible."

The court largely agreed. Wahl noted in his decision that the Greenways and Ehlerts failed to initially raise objections or ask for environmental review over the project, despite a public hearing and City Council vote about the construction, which they knew about.

Wahl wrote, "Ms. Redmond kept Plaintiffs informed throughout the project ... routinely sent project-related text messages ... showed plaintiffs project plans and a video rendering of the finished home" and that "plaintiffs admitted that neither the Redmonds nor any of LLC's contractors or consultants ever refused to provide information requested by Plaintiffs."

The Redmonds bought the property in 2018 for $6.8 million, tore down an existing house and began construction on their new home. Court documents show that issues escalated when the large detached garage was built.

"Jenni Greenway literally testified she cried when she drove by and saw the garage door, of all things in life," Skolnick said.

One of the final claims that was dismissed focused on whether construction of the home and detached garage had violated the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act by encroaching on a bluff impact or setback zone — specifically defined areas near shoreline that drain toward waterbodies. The court ruled the Redmonds had built on a slope, not a bluff.

"It gets a little esoteric," Skolnick said. "You're measuring the top of the bluff and the toe of the bluff. Their expert simply wasn't credible whereas the defendant's expert was the expert."

The Greenways and Ehlerts relied on an expert who was identified as an "engineer in training" but he couldn't recall his licensure date and had worked on only one project involving municipal shoreland regulations.

The Redmonds' expert worked as a planner for nearly three decades and "drafted, interpreted, and administered municipal shoreland management ordinances" as their expert.

Judge Wahl ultimately sided with the Redmonds' expert and ruled the construction was done in accordance with environmental and city zoning ordinance.

Attorney Jack Perry, who represented the Ehlerts and Greenways, said everyone handled the case with a high level of maturity.

"You're living in homes of this value, there is no one who gets to that status without having been around some sort of legal dispute to a given degree," Perry said. "My sense is they have done, it seems like, a remarkably good job of being adults, recognizing they have different views of how the law should play out in this one."

Whether this is the end of legal maneuvering is a different question.

"My clients were disappointed in the result, and they are at this point weighing their rights to appeal," Perry said. "We'll make that decision in the next couple of weeks."