`Like A Disney Theme Park' -- Work On Paul Allen's Huge Complex Upsets Neighbors

Give or take a few hundred million dollars, Paul Allen's Microsoft stock is worth more than $3 billion, and that's only a portion of his wealth.

The total assessed valuation of all Mercer Island, where Allen has his permanent home, is only $2.75 billion.

So it's no great surprise that the sprawling six-acre complex of mansions and recreational facilities the software magnate is building has come to dominate the island's southwest waterfront, both by its sheer mass and by the disruption the immense construction project is creating with noise, dirt and traffic.

Just this week, nearby residents converged on City Hall to rescue an agreement to reopen their easement road across Allen's property that connects Shore Lane with 77th Avenue Southeast.

Allen's representatives had sought to change plans and cut off 77th at Allen's north property line.

And while Allen waits out the construction in another waterfront mansion that he bought in Bellevue's Newport Shores, his Mercer Island neighbors complain they're being driven up the wall.

On weekends, sightseers turn the narrow, winding Shore Lane "into a three-ring circus. It's like living in a Disney theme park," one of the neighbors said.

City officials say there's nothing wrong with how the project is being handled. It meets all regulations, they point out, and was approved only after careful professional review.

"There's no law against being big," says Planning Director Jerry Bacon, "so long as it's to scale with the property. And he's got six acres."

Allen is creating a residential and recreational complex around a waterfront mansion once owned by Horace McCurdy, builder of the first Lake Washington floating bridge.

Project manager Jody Allen Patton, Allen's sister, estimates the project will be done in the fall.

When it's done, the complex will include a basketball gymnasium and two-court tennis building, connected by a gatehouse and skybridge; an underground recreation room with grotto, hot tub and pool, on the waterfront north of Allen's principal residence; a passive-recreation complex, the three-story "rose court," with theater, art gallery and star-viewing room surrounded by rose arbors and a watercourse; a second, 8,000-square-foot residence for his mother, Fay Allen, with an additional 1,800 square feet devoted to a library; and an underground seven-car garage with lift and gasoline pump.

To make way for the complex, Allen bought and demolished three houses, and recently acquired the waterfront home of Irving Stanislaw at a price reported by real-estate sources at $3 million.

Allen has never personally dealt with the city, relegating all business to his attorney and representatives, according to Bacon.

Allen, 39, is co-founder of Microsoft, founder of Asymetrix in Bellevue, and co-founder just this year of a new venture called Interval Research Corp. He owns the Portland NBA Trailblazers, and one rumor among some of his neighbors is that the estate will be used as a summer training camp.

"Like the `Field of Dreams,' if he builds it, they will come," one neighbor said. But Patton flatly denies there's any chance of the the estate being a team summer camp.

"We've given up fighting it," admitted a Shore Lane resident this week. "To put this situation into perspective, this guy could build the I-90 project twice without giving up his pocket change."

Or, to put it in further perspective, he could buy all of Mercer Island.