Next-door mansion renovation is stopping home sale: suit

The years-long gut renovation of an Upper East Side mansion by a pretty real-estate scion and her husband has created such a sprawling mess that a broker refused to even list a would-be seller’s adjacent, $ 25 million townhouse for fear it wouldn’t sell.

And the broker was right, gripes the seller, retired publishing executive Dick Snyder, in a $ 60 million lawsuit against neighbors Mer­edith and Bryan Verona.

Meredith is the daughter of ­Richard Lane, head of the Olnick Organization, a major developer of commercial and residential buildings in Manhattan.

Snyder, former chairman of ­Simon & Schuster, says a top city broker at first declined a potential whopping commission because Snyder’s lavish, 11,000-square-foot townhouse at 120 E. 78th St. was surrounded by scaffolding and heaps of garbage from the construction at 122 E. 78th St.

Since Snyder’s property finally went on the market six months ago, buyers haven’t bitten.

“Despite the fact that the residential market has been and continues to experience tremendous demand for residential real property, and although Snyder had several parties view the residence, astonishingly . . . not a single offer has been made to purchase the residence,” the former book ­honcho huffs in the Manhattan civil suit.

“This is a direct result of the defendants’ construction,” he adds.

Meanwhile the 81-year-old retiree says he can’t enjoy his private garden, roof deck or massage room because of “excessive noise” from the construction, vibrations that have damaged his furnace, and holes that have been drilled into a shared wall.

The townhouse, right, owned by Dick Synder and the under-gut renovation mansion, left, owned by the Veronas.Photo: New York Post/Chad Rachman

The “self-serving construction . . . should not be allowed to continue,” Snyder says in the suit.

Over the course of construction, contractors have shoved piles of snow onto Snyder’s grand, elliptical staircase entryway and dumped materials on his deck without permission, he alleges.

But a construction supervisor on site Tuesday told The Post his crew goes to great lengths to ­appease Snyder.

“There’s been a couple of times where they’ve asked us to shut down for an hour or so and we’ve complied,” said site boss Robert Murphy, of the construction firm Sweeney & Conroy.

Murphy claims that whenever Snyder shows his property to would-be buyers, the workers abide by “times of silence.”

Meredith, 41, and Bryan, 42, in 2011 started a complete conversion of their $ 17 million manse from a multiple-apartment dwelling into a single, 36-foot-wide, five-story pad.

They did not return messages seeking comment.

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