Embattled Marblehead homeowner explains his story

MARBLEHEAD – Sitting in the front room of his $1 million home at 74 Bubier Road, embattled 73-year-old homeowner Wayne Johnson sometimes seemed a little unsettled Monday as he tried to explain why his house is considered illegal – and perhaps there was some reason for that.”Some people say I’m thumbing my nose at the town,” he said at one point. “I’m just trying to save my home. What would you do? When you go through something like this you can’t believe it,” he said, emphasizing his point by punching his fist into his left hand. “You follow the rules, you do what professionals tell you to do?I’ve been treated irresponsibly.””We have good, dedicated board members,” he added. “They made a mistake. They didn’t know (this) was the wrong thing to do, and I didn’t know, and then a judge decided that (it was wrong) three years after the fact.”A judge is scheduled to take another look at the situation Nov. 29, when the state Appeals Court will hold its first hearing on Johnson’s latest attempt to overturn a Land Court order to raze or remove his home. At least part of the case could be decided in January, probably after the Planning Board holds the next part of its hearing on Johnson’s proposed zoning bylaw change to reduce the minimum house lot frontage from 100 to 75 feet, a change that would legalize his home.What a change 18 years can make.In 1992 Johnson lived in a 100-year-old, 14-room home on a sizable Bubier Road lot with a separate garage. His sons had moved on and Johnson began consulting realtors about selling the house. They told him to look into sub-dividing, making the garage area a separate house lot.One $2,000 survey later a local lawyer told Johnson he had a buildable second lot and former Building Inspector Alan Hezekiah confirmed that. When Johnson put the house on the market early in 1993 he offered the property as one large lot or two smaller lots. Potential buyers wanted to know what that second house could look like, so Johnson had an architect create a schematic to display at his open house.According to Johnson, Dr. John Schey and Mrs. Schey, Johnson’s neighbors, attended the open house and when Mrs. Schey saw the new house design she was “dismayed.”During the next two years the Scheys apparently did not offer to buy the property, an action that would have saved 15 years of legal costs. In 1995 when Johnson was ready to build the second house for himself, the Scheys’ lawyer, Attorney Frank McElroy, wrote to Johnson and Hezekiah, stating that the Scheys would be “dramatically and negatively affected” by the proposed house.Hezekiah told McElroy that the property was “non-conforming” as far as lot width but it was legal at the time the subdivision was recorded. The Scheys took their objections to the Board of Appeals, but they were unsuccessful. At one point, Johnson said, Dr. Schey offered to show him the impact the new house would have on the Scheys, but when he went to their home to discuss it Mrs. Schey refused to let him inside.Johnson denies that he was ever warned about the possible consequences of building his home and did not realize until after the fact that the Scheys tried to halt construction with a restraining order. He said he moved into the new house in January 1997, the court case ensued in 1998 and the Land Court ruled against him in 2000.Johnson said one of the legal problems he faced was the garage that formerly stood on the second house lot. It was illegal in a single-family zone and its existence nullified the survey and the subdivision. That meant he lacked enough frontage on the new house lot and needed a variance, which he could not obtain.He said he tried to purchase the Scheys’ home only to be told, “All we want to do is have your house torn down.”The Scheys produced an appraiser who said Johnson’s house diminished the value of their home by $33,000 because it obstructed their view of the harbor. Standing at the windows on the right side of his home Johnson points to the harbor, a small