Patrick seeks OK to build in Berkshires

Governor Deval Patrick, who built a sprawling vacation compound on 77 acres in the Berkshires last year, is seeking town approval to subdivide his land with the potential to build another house next door.

The property built by Patrick and his wife, Diane, includes a 10-room house with five bathrooms, a connected carriage house, a pool, and a tennis court, and is now estimated by the town of Richmond to be worth more than $2.8 million.

Tonight, a lawyer for the Patricks plans to seek zoning approval for the first of several steps required to carve out 10.5 acres of the land. Plans submitted with the request show the potential for a two-family house to be built on the parcel with the caveat that "no further subdivision allowed." Under town zoning regulations, the Patricks' existing property is also considered a two-family house because of the number of kitchens and bathrooms.

The governor's spokesman, Kyle Sullivan, would not say whether the Patricks intend to build on the smaller parcel or to sell it.

"They are taking some steps that will give them flexibility in the future, but they have no immediate plans for the property," Sullivan said.

The Patricks' lawyer, Philip F. Heller, said they want to carve out the lot so that they could build a separate house or sell the property in the future. "If they decide to sell it, they will be ready to put it on the market and will have already gone through the zoning process," he said.

Patrick, whose first weeks in office were marked by controversies over lavish spending on furniture for the governor's office and the lease of a luxury Cadillac, raised eyebrows during the campaign last year with his expensive construction in the Berkshires.

The home was assessed at $1.4 million when it was only half finished and before the pool, poolhouse, and tennis court were completed, said Richmond zoning officer Craig Swinson. Now, it would be worth at least $2.8 million and could probably sell for much more.

If the governor wins approval to subdivide the land, the 10.5-acre lot would share the Patricks' driveway, where a state trooper now patrols on the weekends that he is in town, Swinson said.

Unlike some of the priciest land in Richmond, the lot has no view, except of the governor's house. Still, lots of its size are drawing between $300,000 and $500,000, Swinson said.

Officials do not expect controversy at tonight's Zoning Board of Appeals hearing on an adjustment to change the acreage on the Patricks' existing special permit, which specified unnecessarily that the precise size of their lot is 77 acres. If the board approves, the Patricks would still need to go before the planning board to split their property and to get approval to share their driveway with the other lot.

But some Richmond residents, who fear their rural community will be transformed by development, are closely watching the Patricks' plan and others like it. Local residents complain about the influx of rich New Yorkers buying vacation property and about two executives whose $1.6 million-plus houses were built in a prominent spot on the side of a hilltop.

"I don't have any objections to him going ahead," said Jerome O'Neil, whose property abuts the Patricks' land. "It's his property, and he's doing what he wants to do. But I want to know if it's going to affect me personally, because this whole project has changed my valuation in town. It's affected me financially."

The bucolic town, 145 miles west of Boston on the New York border, would hardly qualify as a hub of development. With just 972 houses on 12,500 acres and only three or four new ones built each year, the town doesn't even have a traffic light, officials said.

Still, 10 residents signed a petition this month asking members of the May 23 Town Meeting to require even larger lot sizes: 3.5 acres, rather than 2.5 acres, with 350 feet of frontage, rather than 250. If the proposal is approved, it could affect Patrick's second lot, which would have just 250 feet of frontage, forcing him to get additional permits to subdivide. That led some to view the petition as an effort to block Patrick's project.

"I think there were a few people who thought the timing of the thing was way too coincidental," Swinson said.

But the man who launched the petition said he was not aiming to thwart Patrick, but future developers who could change the character of his town. "I don't want it densely populated; a lot of people here don't," said the petitioner, James Shoemaker.

Shoemaker acknowledged that his great-uncle, who signed his petition, was a developer who built large houses in Richmond.

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com.