Barr Foundation founder Amos Hostetter Jr., who lives in the historic Harrison Gray Otis mansion on Mt. Vernon Street, today sued a couple relatively recently arrived from Cambridge over the roof deck they have proposed for their historic, if smaller, house out back on Pinckney Street.

In his suit, filed with the owners of a neighboring Pinckney Street house in Suffolk Superior Court, Hostetter also names the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission, which approved the proposed deck last month. The suit seeks to have the approval overturned, to bar Sarah Rilley and Per Ostman from having the deck built at their new home at 54 Pinckney St. - and to make them and the commission reimburse Hostetter's attorneys for their work on the case.

The commission approved the proposed deck on Aug. 15, concluding it would have "de minimis" impact on the historic area:

The deck will not be visible from any vantage point on Pinckney or Anderson Streets, will be only slightly visible along an approximate ten-foot stretch of Mount Vernon Street, and will be less visible from the latter vantage point than two similarly situated and previously approved decks located at 56 and 58 Pinckney Street, respectively. The only other Public Way from which the deck will be visible is Alley 303, a narrow (sidewalk width), dead-end, and minimally-trafficked walled passageway with limited apparent accessibility to the public. Consistent with prior decisions regarding the impact of views from this largely hidden vantage point, it was determined that visibility therefrom will not adversely impact the overall historic character of the block and thus does not preclude a finding of de minimis visibility overall.

Balderdash, Hostetter's lawsuit thunders:

Upon information and belief, the proposed roof deck would be visible from and would allow direct views into, the private back yards and other aspects of the Hostetter Property and the McNamara/Bordewick Property.

The proposed roof deck will cause each of the plaintiffs to suffer particularized harm that is special and different from the concerns of the community at large, including, without limitation:
a. Loss of privacy;
b. Increased noise;
c. Interference with views from their properties;
d. Damage to the historic character of the Beacon Hill district; and
e. Diminished property values as a result of the loss of privacy, increased noise, interference with views, and damage to the historic character of the district.

The complaint charges the architectural commission regulations specifically bar roof decks "that are visible from a public way" in the Beacon Hill historic district and state that "no alteration will be approved that is inappropriate to the historical character, architectural design, and materials of the building or its setting."

Hostetter filed his suit along with Martha McNamara and James Bordewick, Jr., who own 56 Pinckney St.

In its provisional decision, the commission noted that the proposed deck at 54 Pinckney would be similar in nature to the one 56 Pinckney St. the commission had earlier approved.

Hostetter and his wife Barbara bought the Second Harrison Gray Otis House, built by Charles Bulfinch between 1800 and 1802, for an estimated $12 million in 2003 . At the time, that made it the most expensive house in Boston. Today, the city assesses its worth at $18.2 million.

Reilly and Ostman paid $5.8 million for their new home on Pinckney Street in 2022 - just two months after the Globe had profiled them for their "funky Cambridge loft with a mirrored shower that’s like being in 'a Picasso' " in Cambridge.

Their home was built in the 1830s for Boston attorney George Hilliard, whose partner was Charles Sumner, who would eventually become a senator. Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in the house as Hilliard's guest for 18 months while he worked at the Boston Custom House.

The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and Beacon Communities yesterday asked the Boston Planning Department to let them shrink the size of a proposed apartment building at 50 Herald St. in the South End - where the C-Mart is now - from 313 to 115 or 120 apartments.

But, the non-profit and the developer say, the smaller building would consist entirely of affordable apartments rented to people making no more than 80% of the Boston-area median income. The original, larger proposal - submitted by the association and a different developer - would have had about 81 affordable units.

The revised plans for the three-quarter-acre site show no parking for residents. The original plans for the larger building called for 120 parking spaces in an underground garage.

The building would have 12,000 to 14,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and community space, with the commercial space possibly offered to C-Mart. In 2022, the association initially signaled it would sue C-Mart to force it to move, but then never actually served the grocery store with a copy of its complaint, and a judge dismissed the case six months later.

The building would be the final in a three-building complex along Herald Street, Washington Street and Shawmut Avenue originally approved in 2018.

The proposed building would be all electric, with no gas hookups.

50 Herald St. notice of project change and information on how to comment.

The Madison Park Development Corp. has filed plans for a six-story residential building on a lot Warren and Crawford street in Roxbury that has sat vacant since the 1960s as a holdover from the Washington Park urban-renewal project.

All of the units - 54 apartments and 9 condos - would be rented or sold as affordable, according to the non-profit's filing with the Boston Planning Department. Some 16 of the apartments would rented to people making no more than 30% of the Boston area median income, with the rest to people making no more than 60% or 80% of that amount. The condos would be aimed at people making no more than 80% or 120% of that amount.

The units would range from one to three bedrooms.

In addition to residential units, the building would have 2,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

Madison Park says it is still figuring out the number of parking spaces, but that it is tentatively looking at 22 spaces in a lot on the three-quarter-acre parcel. The site is next to several bus lines and is about a half mile from the Four Corners/Geneva station on the Fairmount Line. Madison Park says it will provide indoor bike storage.

639 Warren St. filings and meeting/comment schedule.

Three Boston city councilors yesterday called for a hearing to ask local postal officials why mail service has plummeted like a rock, in particular on Mission Hill in particular, but also across the city.

In their request for an emergency hearing, Councilors Sharon Durkan and Ben Weber, who share Mission Hill in their districts, and Henry Santana (at large), say the ad-hoc elimination of delivery service on Mission Hill, is "causing hardship and inconvenience to residents and businesses in the area," could screw up prescriptions and voting by mail and is a violation of the Postal Service's once sacred duty to connect Americans, as codified in federal law.

Their request does not specify if they will notify local postal officials of the hearing date once it has been by mail or by a more reliable method.