Judge: Home mistakenly built on Point Judith park land must be torn down

AN R.I. SUPREME COURT judge has ruled that Robert Lamoureux's $1.8 million Ocean Road house, mistakenly built on Point Judith park land after a poor survey, must be torn down. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
AN R.I. SUPREME COURT judge has ruled that Robert Lamoureux's $1.8 million Ocean Road house, mistakenly built on Point Judith park land after a poor survey, must be torn down. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

PROVIDENCE – A $1.8 million waterfront house mistakenly built on Point Judith park land in Narragansett must be moved or torn down, the R.I. Supreme Court ruled Friday.

Robert Lamoureux, the Warwick developer who built the Ocean Road house in 2010, was appealing a 2012 Superior Court order in favor of the Rose Nulman Park Foundation, whose trustees wanted the house off of the park.

In a written opinion, Supreme Court Justice Gilbert V. Indeglia concluded that although Lamoureux had “clean hands” in building the house in the wrong place, thanks to a poor survey, allowing it to remain on the park would cause more harm than removing it.

“…We are not unsympathetic to the defendants’ plight and agree that this is, as the trial justice acknowledged, an ‘unfortunate situation,’” Indeglia wrote. “We are, however, convinced that it would be an unjust result to order the transfer of title to a portion of the Nulman property to the defendants or award only money damages.

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“It is said that ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’ Whatever the truth of the saying might be, this Court declines to punish the innocent plaintiff by forcing it to lose any portion of its property,” he added. “To do so would be to effect a judicial taking of property for private benefit.”

Lamoureux had offered to buy the land the house was mistakenly built on or swap a portion of his waterfront for it, but the Nulman family refused. Lamoureux has also explored moving the house and received approval from Narragansett officials to do so if the appeal failed.

The Superior Court ruling acknowledged that removing the house would be a “complex process” and gave Lamoureux a “reasonable time table” to do so.

To read Indeglia’s full decision, visit www.courts.ri.gov.

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