Dubow says: Let them eat cake somewhere else!

Just six months into retirement, Craig Dubow and his wife Denise have gone to court to block a neighbor from building a 25,424-square-foot mansion modeled on the Palace of Versailles, the former home of that other power couple, Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette.

In a Page One story today, The Washington Post says the Dubow lawsuit over construction of Le Chateau de Lumiere in Virginia's Hidden Springs enclave "largely boils down to a collision between new and old ideas about the way Washington expresses its success — and flaunts its wealth — in a place that has the region’s most concentrated affluence."

According to the Post, plans for the home, estimated to cost up to $20 million, show it will have five bedrooms, three two-car garages, an elevator, and a pool and a pool house.

"The basement alone," the paper says, "will have a wine cellar, an exercise room, a billiard room, a theater with a concession space, a spa, a sauna, a card room, a recreation room, a gallery, a kitchen and a large guest bedroom. On the third floor, the master bedroom suite will take up an entire wing and consist of a study, sitting room, gallery and four other rooms."

Well, tout de suite, the Dubows brought suit this month against neighbor Young Yi -- saying, according to the Post, "the chateau would ruin the 'sylvan character' of Hidden Springs, the plans violate the neighborhood covenants, and the chateau would sink local home values, according to court documents. The Dubows want the plans scaled back to fit the more 'conservative' aesthetics of Hidden Springs."

Who's paying for suit?
It appears Gannett itself could be paying for some of the costs, depending on when the lawsuit was filed.

Under terms of Dubow's retirement benefits, he and other senior executives get "legal and financial counseling services on the same basis as available to an active executive at the time his or her employment terminates, until April 15 of the year of retirement or the year following retirement,'' according to the newest proxy report to shareholders.

Dubow retired last October, so his legal services benefit should have ended nine days ago. The Dubows brought their suit this month, according to the Post. The paper did not give a specific date, however.

Earlier: the Craig and Denise Dubow scholarship fund saga.