JUST SIT RIGHT BACK AND YOU'LL HEAR A TALE...

...OF THE BILLIONAIRE AND HIS WIFE, THEIR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS, A SHOWDOWN OVER A BACKYARD CHIHULY, AND WHAT GILLIGAN HAS TO DO WITH IT.

- MARY CHILDS

Epic egos, petty jealousies, and knock-down, drag-out legal brawls are to be expected when the rich clash over beauty, but the music from Gilligan's Island played a surprising starring role in a blue-chip battle royal like no other in a tony corner of Southern California.

When Amy Gross's mother fell ill, Amy's husband, the investor Bill Gross, bought his wife a $1 million Dale Chihuly: a 9-foot-high-by-22-foot-long sculpture madeup of spheres and wispy blown-glass tubes in cobalt and teal blue. Blue is her mother's favorite color.

They installed it in the backyard of their cliffside Laguna Beach home. Amy said she and her mother started praying to it. "Since I have no children of my own, they are like my babies," she added. So it was upsetting when a sphere got damaged.

Odd, it seemed to her, because "the ball is very, very thick and the glass is strong, like if I kicked it nothing would happen," she texted their neighbor to the north, who in turn suggested that a falling palm frond might have been the culprit. To protect the piece, the Grosses installed steel poles and a net-a soccer goal, more or less.

Their neighbors, tech entrepreneur Mark Towfiq and his wife Carol Nakahara, then noticed that to enjoy the full span of their ocean view from their primary bedroom, they would need to look out over the Grosses' backyard. Over the Chihuly. And its uplighting. And the net. They asked the Grosses to remove the shield, and when they didn't comply, the neighbors complained to the city.