My father did not.
“He was probably right about gravity.”
For more than seventy years, no Hastings had needed to exercise the emergency right.
The lake became recreational.
People fished.
Families built modest cabins.
Children learned to swim from wooden docks.
My grandfather built the first bridge from our peninsula to the half-acre island we owned in the cove.
It was a graceful arched timber structure resting on heavy supports designed for the relatively sheltered water.
By the time I inherited the property, the original bridge had deteriorated badly.
I rebuilt it on the same footprint using redwood and treated structural members, preserving the arch design my grandfather had loved.
Seventy feet long.
Wide enough for two people to walk comfortably side by side.
High enough for fishing boats, kayaks, canoes, and small utility craft to pass beneath.
I inspected it constantly.
That was the curse of being an engineer.
Other people saw a bridge.
I saw fasteners, load paths, moisture exposure, lateral bracing, settlement, rot, and everything that might fail someday if neglected.
Every spring I checked the timber.
Every few years I brought in another structural engineer so nobody could accuse me of trusting my own judgment too much.
The bridge was safe.
It was also beautiful.
At sunrise the redwood almost glowed.
My wife loved sitting on the island with a book.
After she died, I continued walking there most mornings.
That bridge became part of my routine.
Coffee.
Walk.
Island.
Back home.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing political.
Until the Reserve arrived.
The development’s marketing team called Oak Haven a boater’s paradise.
That created expectations.
New residents arrived with increasingly large boats.
Fishing skiffs gave way to wake boats.
Wake boats gave way to cabin cruisers.
Then people began bringing vessels that seemed absurd for a six-hundred-acre landlocked lake.
My bridge sat across one narrow channel between the peninsula and the island.
Smaller boats could pass underneath.
The larger Reserve boats could not.
That meant residents trying to circle every corner of the shoreline eventually reached my cove, discovered the bridge, and had to turn around.
The first few people handled it normally.
They slowed.
Realized they would not fit.
Reversed.
No problem.
Then Richard Covington arrived.
Richard was in his early fifties, though he dressed as if perpetually headed to a private club where age was considered negotiable.
He had made his money managing a hedge fund in Manhattan.
He bought the largest waterfront lot in the Reserve and built a house with more glass than some office buildings.
He wore mirrored sunglasses constantly.
Sometimes even under cloudy skies.
He used phrases like “value proposition,” “stakeholder alignment,” and “quality-of-life optimization” in ordinary conversation.
Within a year, the HOA elected him president.
I still do not understand why.
Perhaps he was persuasive.
Perhaps wealthy people enjoy electing whoever sounds most confident.
Richard treated the position as if the governor had appointed him superintendent of the lake.
The first letter arrived in April.
RESERVE AT OAK HAVEN HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION
NOTICE OF ARCHITECTURAL NONCOMPLIANCE.
I laughed before finishing it.
According to the letter, my bridge represented an “aesthetic incompatibility with the community’s approved shoreline design standards.”
My property was not in the Reserve.
I did not pay HOA dues.
I had never signed a covenant.
I was not subject to their design standards.
I wrote one sentence in response.
My property is not part of the Reserve at Oak Haven and therefore is not subject to your association’s jurisdiction.
I signed it.
Mailed it.
Thought that would be the end.
Three days later, another letter came.
This one called the bridge a navigational obstruction.
A week later:
PUBLIC SAFETY CONCERN.
Then:
REQUEST FOR VOLUNTARY REMOVAL.
The word voluntary amused me because the following paragraph threatened legal action.
I forwarded everything to my attorney.