A character who had been linked to a Sea Cliff mansion with an illegal cliffside staircase, who was convicted over a decade ago in a bizarre fraud case involving $11 million in fine art paintings, is back in the news.
Luke Brugnara, the San Francisco real estate investor with a notably checkered past, has reportedly put up an illegal chain-link fence around a piece of oceanfront property in Daly City that has long been used for its hiking and equestrian trail, and as a path to Thornton State Beach. Local residents are upset, and the Daly City Council is looking to get it removed.
And, as the Chronicle reports, this isn’t even Brugnara’s property, though he appears to be disputing that. A woman named Donna Pope tells the Chronicle that the property has been owned by her family for generations, and it appears that Brugnara has been squatting on it — though it’s not clear where?
The photo below, snapped by San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa, who lives nearby, shows the handwritten sign that was attached to the fence last week, and appears to show a mobile home in the distance.
The sign also has a hand-drawn image of a gun, and says that trespassers will be “shot on site.” [sic]
Canepa seemed to be under the impression when he spoke to SFGate last week that the property had changed hands in November, and the New York Post subsequently reported that a trust linked to Brugnara had purchased the property in December.
But now that seems to be false.
“It was egregious if he was the owner, but now we have a squatter,” said Canepa, speaking to the Chronicle. “To have the audacity to squat and then, if you could imagine, build a fence is probably in my 19 years of politics the sickest thing I have ever seen.”
Pope, the property owner, says she wants the fence removed, and adds, of the whole situation, “It’s just bizarre.”
But with Brugnara, bizarro stuff seems to happen.
Brugnara appears to have become wealthy through real estate investments a couple of decades back, but has also run afoul of the law several times. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion, and to violating the Endangered Species Act, for apparently poaching steelhead trout and blocking a dam on property that he owned in Gilroy.
Back in 2002, he purchased a mansion in Sea Cliff once owned by the actor Cheech Marin, and proceeded to construct an illegal staircase down the cliff from the house to a small private beach. When a lender subsequently attempted to sell the property in the last decade, its sale price was repeatedly reduced, and it came with the caveat that any new owner would have to pay to have the staircase removed. The property ultimately sold in 2024 for $7 million, about $10 million less than it had been listed for in 2021.
It was in that house’s garage that Brugnara stored $11 million in fine art, including works by Willem de Kooning and Edgar Degas, which had been shipped from a New York Gallery — and which Brugnara proceeded to claim was a gift. He was charged and convicted for mail fraud in 2015 after failing to pay for the purchases — he represented himself at trial and, as ABC 7 reported, made repeated scenes in the courtroom that landed him in contempt.
Brugnara continued denying any wrongdoing, but it appears that one of his appeal efforts centerd on his mental competence to stand trial or represent himself. As the Chronicle reports, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately ruled that there was no evidence to suggest Brugnara was mentally incompetent.
Still, a defense psychologist testified that Brugnara suffered from delusions, and “narcissistic personality disorder.”
In a jailhouse interview with ABC 7 in 2015, Brugnara said he was known as “Lucky Luke” after making some good real estate investments, including the purchase of an office building at 939 Market Street when he was just 28 years old.
As for the fence, Canepa has written to the California Coastal Commission seeking its removal, noting that public access to the beach and trails have been available for decades — and the case is reminiscent of the notorious Vinod Khosla debacle concerning Martins Beach, also in San Mateo County.
But the commission’s help may not be needed if Brugnara isn’t even the property owner, so we’ll see what comes next.
Jay Barmann
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