Sylvester Stallone and his wife, Jennifer Flavin, moved to Florida in 2021 after purchasing a $35 million mansion in Palm Beach. Stallone now intends to move forward with a project to build an underwater barrier. What is said to be an environmental project, the U.S. Army Corps stated that it is actually intended to be a way to exclude boaters. Stallone's neighbors were not amused.
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"He bought a beautiful property," Bradford Gary, one of Stallone's neighbors, said, according to The Palm Beach Post. "I can see why you'd want to protect it. But you can't just kind of stake your claim and think you own the water."
Gary would explain that other neighbors are concerned over Stallone's project. "Usually when your neighbors are gonna do something, we've found in Palm Beach, usually they call," Gary said. "We would not want a whole section of the beach completely blocked by this net, which is pretty big."
Susan Gary, Bradford's wife, is also concerned about the project, given that she became stuck due to the inlet's current. "From that experience, I would say it was a safety issue, particularly for people who are new to the area and don't realize how strong the current can be," Susan said.
Army Corps' Concern
The project presented to the Army Corps by Sylvester Stallone includes plans to protect the wildlife in the area, which includes manatees, sea turtles, and smalltooth sawfish. However, that also raised concern about the project's true intentions.
"The Corps is reviewing the project purpose to determine if the use of barrier for the purpose of deterring boaters within the public waterway is permittable," an Army Corps spokesperson said. At the same time, one of the project's engineers stated in an email that trash, bottles, and seaweed, among other items, washed up to the mansion's beach.
Neighbors, however, do not believe seaweed is an issue, as they have never seen huge amounts of seaweed on the shoreline. This, of course, could justify the Army Corps and the neighbors' concerns that Stallone's project is only looking to keep boaters out of the property.
Moving To Florida
Sylvester Stallone moved to Florida in 2021 after purchasing the mansion. "I wasn't moving because 'Oh, wow, I wanted another beautiful view'," said at a time in his Netflix documentary. "Any time changing that paradigm which you become used to, it's literally to jump-start that process again."
He didn't list crime as his reason to move from California, as "there's crime in Florida, too." According to Stallone, while he loves California he just "needed a change," feeling he couldn't live in the same house any longer. He still went on to call California "the most beautiful state in the United States."
