On the morning of Wednesday, July 22, 2026, a crane lowered a 40-foot section of a Gulfstream G550 fuselage onto the roof of a house under construction at 15 Sandpiper Strand, in the Cays' Green Turtle Cay village. The developer, Donatello Bonasera Development LLC, calls the estimated $30 million project Casa Faten. Public reporting on the build describes a Bugatti Chiron staged in the living room and a 100-foot dock built for two yachts. The fuselage was meant to be the signature piece, positioned at the roofline for what the developer has described as an unobstructed view.
By the time the crane finished its work, the argument over what the house means had already been running for three months, and it had almost nothing to do with the jet itself.
The lawsuit was never really about the fuselage
A group of neighbors, including Garrett and Amanda Pagon, who live across the water from the property, filed suit in San Diego Superior Court on April 10, 2026, against both the developer and the Coronado Cays Homeowners Association. The core claim is procedural, not aesthetic. The Cays' Member Handbook requires that proposed exterior improvements be shown in three dimensions, height, width and depth, so the architectural committee can judge whether a project fits the scale of the surrounding neighborhood. According to the plaintiffs, what the HOA actually approved in 2023 was a flat, two-dimensional drawing. No elevations. No massing study. Neighbors also say formal notice went to only the two adjacent homes, not to the wider group of properties across the canal that would end up looking at a jet every morning.
The developer disputes the process was flawed and maintains the project holds all required approvals from both the city and the HOA. The city, for its part, has been clear that it plays no role in judging design once a project clears code review. Zoning and building compliance are the city's job. Whether a rooftop fuselage belongs in a residential neighborhood was always going to be decided by the HOA's own paperwork, or by a judge asked to interpret it.
An HOA that cites flagpoles just approved a jet
Here is the detail that should matter more to a buyer than the fuselage itself. Cays residents who have run afoul of the HOA describe getting flagged for exterior paint colors, patio furniture, and flagpoles, ordinary, low-stakes stuff that gets caught and corrected. Yet the same review structure let a 40-foot aircraft section onto a roofline without, according to the plaintiffs, the 3D documentation its own handbook requires for anything that size.
"The problem that I have is that it's setting a dangerous precedent," Cays resident Dawn Richards told a local reporter, framing her objection less around taste and more around consistency.
That gap between what gets enforced and what gets waved through is the real finding here. A CC&R clause that reads as strict on paper is only as strong as the committee's willingness to apply it evenly. For anyone evaluating a home in a custom-build village, the handbook language is the wrong document to lean on for reassurance. The approval history is the one that matters.
Not every village in the Cays promises the same protection
There's a second layer to this that buyers comparing properties across the Cays should sit with. In its response to the lawsuit, the HOA didn't argue that the fuselage was ordinary. It argued that Green Turtle Cay, specifically, is designated for custom-built homes, the kind of village where residents already live alongside domes, pergolas, putting greens, and other one-off architectural statements. In other words, the same governing document that polices paint color in one part of the Cays explicitly makes room for individual expression in another.
The Cays overall is organized into six custom-home villages and four condominium villages, a structure that residents and property records describe as roughly 1,189 to 1,200 homes total, tied together by more than 600 boat slips and one association. That structure means the character protection a buyer assumes applies uniformly across "the Cays" actually varies by village designation. A condo village built around a shared facade and a custom-home village like Green Turtle Cay are governed by the same HOA, but not by the same expectation of visual conformity. Assuming otherwise is how a buyer ends up surprised.
What this actually means if you're evaluating a specific address
The lesson from Casa Faten isn't that the Cays lacks rules. It's that the rules are village-specific and unevenly applied, which makes the diligence work different from what most buyers expect walking into an HOA community. Before writing an offer on a custom-build lot or a home adjacent to an undeveloped parcel in the Cays, it's worth asking for more than the CC&R summary:
- Which village is this parcel in, and is it designated for custom architecture or for a more uniform housing type?
- Has the architectural committee approved any pending projects nearby, and were 3D renderings part of that approval, or just a site plan?
- What does the enforcement history for this specific block actually look like: citations issued, waivers granted, disputes on file?
- If a lot next door is vacant or recently sold, what design review has already occurred, and is there a way to see the approved plans before they're built?
None of this shows up in a listing description or a standard resale disclosure packet. It shows up in the HOA's approval file, which a buyer or their agent can request through escrow or directly from the Cays' resale administration.
Where the case stands right now
As of this writing, the outcome is still unresolved. Reporting on the case has given two different hearing dates, September 14 and September 18, 2026, a discrepancy that reflects how quickly the docket has been moving rather than any confirmed change of record. The developer's legal team has argued that no injunction is warranted because the fuselage causes no irreparable harm and could be taken down as easily as it was installed. The plaintiffs are asking the court to treat the HOA's own approval process, not just the finished structure, as the thing that broke down.
Whichever way the hearing lands, the underlying lesson for Cays buyers doesn't change. An HOA's CC&Rs describe what should happen. Only the approval file shows what actually did.
A few direct questions
Does Coronado Cays HOA review work the same way in every village? No. The same handbook that requires strict scale and character review in most of the community explicitly carves out custom-build villages, including Green Turtle Cay, as places where architecture is expected to be more individual. Two homes governed by the same HOA can carry very different design expectations depending on which village they sit in.
Can a buyer see a property's HOA approval history before making an offer? Yes. Architectural committee approvals, any pending violations, and design review documents are generally available through the HOA's resale process and can be requested during a transaction. Reviewing that file, not just the CC&R booklet, is the step that actually shows what a committee has approved in practice.
Does a dispute like this affect resale value? It's too early to know how this specific case resolves, but the pattern it exposes, real enforcement gaps between minor and major approvals, is exactly the kind of detail an appraiser or a future buyer would want answered before assuming a home's surroundings are stable.
If you're comparing a custom-build lot in Green Turtle Cay against a condominium village elsewhere in the Cays, or trying to read an HOA approval file before you write an offer, that's exactly the kind of local groundwork The Morabito Group does for buyers and sellers across Coronado. Reach out through our Coronado Cays page or request a personalized Coronado market consultation before your next offer goes in.
