By Jane Musgrave
After looking at dozens of places to live in South Florida, Leah Mills said she and her husband settled on Hypoluxo Island because they fell in love with what she described as a “quintessential whimsical Florida Keys-style home.”
That whimsy, however, has turned into a nightmare since the couple last year made what seemed like a routine request to add two bedrooms to their dream home along the Intracoastal Waterway.
With a permit in hand from Lantana, the Oklahoma couple demolished parts of the house in February 2025. Since then, town officials have refused to give them permits to rebuild it.
“This has wrecked our life,” Brent Mills said of the couple's yearlong odyssey. “It would be better if a hurricane hit it. It’s an absolute mess.”
The crux of the dispute, which is playing out in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, is whether the estimated $875,000 addition is worth more than 50% of the value of the house.
If so, the Federal Emergency Management Agency would require the entire house to be elevated and rebuilt at a cost the Millses estimate would reach at least $2 million.
But the bigger question in the dispute is why Lantana officials would give the couple a permit to demolish much of the house, making it unlivable, if they weren’t going to allow them to rebuild it. In the court battle that is becoming increasingly contentious, Lantana building officials insist that the two issues are separate.
“The demolition permit only authorized demolition and did not approve or authorize any improvements or construction associated with any improvements,” Elizabeth Eassa, Lantana’s assistant development services director, said in an affidavit.
But, the Millses countered, they would never have torn down much of the house unless they were assured that their plans to double the size of the 2,300-square-foot house wouldn’t trigger federal regulations.
Banking on appraisal
Before they received the demolition permit they submitted an appraisal that showed the house was worth $2.2 million, which meant the cost of the planned addition was $250,000 below the FEMA threshold.
The Millses talked with town building officials before crews ripped out walls and part of the roof off the house, said Miami attorney Matthew Maranges, who represents the couple. They were assured that the cost of the addition was below the federal threshold.
“The town made clear that it would not issue the demolition permit absent satisfaction with the appraisal, precisely to avoid leaving the owners with a demolished structure that could not be lawfully rebuilt or improved,” Maranges wrote in the lawsuit.
Michael Desorcy, the town building official and floodplain administrator, disputed that such a conversation ever took place. He said the appraisal was received on Feb. 13, 2025, the same day the demolition permit was issued.
“The appraisal played no part in the determination of whether to approve or deny the demolition,” Desorcy said in an affidavit that is part of court records. “Appraisals are not required or used to make decisions whether to issue permits for demolition.”
It wasn’t until after the Millses submitted their building plans in September that the appraisal was reviewed. Desorcy and other Lantana officials said they didn’t believe it.
“In my years of experience as the floodplain administrator and building official, I have never observed any construction project for property on Hypoluxo Island that had a replacement cost of $1,200 per square foot,” Desorcy wrote, indicating that the value of the Mills house, as set by the couple’s appraiser, was inflated.
Conflict in valuations
However, in his report, Palm Beach appraiser Michael Vincent John Spaziani said he set the replacement value of the home at $1,200 per square foot based on recent sales of nearby homes. The square footage costs ranged from $1,100 to $1,300 per square foot, he wrote.
Since the FEMA regulations apply only to the cost of the house, not the pricey real estate beneath it, Spaziani didn't include the land cost in his calculations. The price per square foot was only for the value of the Mills house and others nearby that had recently sold, Maranges said in the suit.
Desorcy was dubious. He instead used the valuation set by the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser. It put the house market value at about $268,000, meaning the value of the proposed $850,000 addition far exceeded the 50% limit.
Maranges said it was absurd to look to the tax appraiser to determine a home’s market price. The property appraiser’s values are “intentionally conservative” and don’t reflect the true cost of homes, particularly in coastal areas where prices are skyrocketing.
“In neighborhoods where residential properties routinely sell for several million dollars and continue to appreciate, using tax-assessment improve-ment values would virtually guarantee that any meaningful renovation or alteration would exceed 50% of the assessed structure value, regardless of the true market value of the building itself,” he wrote.
Judge puts town on notice
Circuit Judge James Sherman has already issued an order, telling Lantana officials to either give the Millses a building permit for the addition or explain why they are refusing to do so and why they believe the 50% threshold has been met.
In court papers, Maranges said town officials have refused to try to resolve the dispute. So, he said, it will be up to Sherman to do so.
A timetable Maranges suggested would put any resolution at least two months away. The Millses, he said, need to move forward.
“(They) have been displaced for over a year,” Maranges said. “The construction cost continues to escalate.”
Brent Mills said he and his wife have been forced to live in hotels when they come to the county to keep watch on the shell of their house that could easily be vandalized.
The reason for the addition was simple, he said. He and his wife wanted to add two bedrooms so their adult children would be comfortable when they visited.
Mills said he is insulted by the town’s suggestion that he and his wife were trying to skirt the rules. Both are lawyers. They give back to the community.
“We hire the best appraisers, the best architects, the best engineers, the best contractors,” he said. “We follow the law to the letter.”
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