Locked gates. Surveillance cameras. Lawyers. A crisis communications specialist. Threats. All over a short trail under the redwoods called Alta Way.
It begins at an 11-acre Corte Madera property once owned by the famed music promoter Bill Graham, who popularized the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Santana, built an amphitheater and managed Rolling Stones tours.
A gated entrance on Corte Madera Avenue sits atop a winding driveway that leads to the house. Designed by pioneering green architect Sim Van der Ryn, it showcases a living room shaped like a guitar. The compound also includes a guest house, yoga studio and cabana.
The current owners bought the 13,600-square-foot estate in 2021 from WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann for $22.4 million.
Since then, the owners have stayed hidden, first behind an LLC and now behind the Corte Madera Property Trust. In a lawsuit filed against the town in March, the trust claims it owns half of Alta Way, with an easement over the rest.
To date, the trust has produced no evidence that it owns any part of it. A 2023 survey conducted by BFK Engineers and filed with the County of Marin shows 800 Corte Madera’s property line stops at Alta Way.
They now want to build a driveway across the tree-lined path, a second entrance.
Not so fast, say the neighbors on the other side of the trail. For many, the 600-foot wooded stretch they call Alta Woods is the only place in the neighborhood to walk. They wanted to meet with whomever lives at 800 Corte Madera Ave. to work out a solution. Instead, the trust sent its representatives.
But in a small town like Corte Madera, it’s difficult to keep a low profile. Two independent sources have identified persons associated with the property to the Pacific Sun.
A neighbor, Yann Bertaud, says he’s repeatedly seen the same driver, Brian Singerman, coming and going from the estate in a blue Bentley convertible.
The second source has met Noelle Moseley in person, and identified her as living at 800 Corte Madera Ave. They spoke under the condition of anonymity, concerned that disclosure could provoke retaliation.
No deed, trust filing or town record ties Moseley or Singerman to the property. But their names appeared together over the spring on the donor lists of two Marin nonprofits. Away from Corte Madera, they also turn up for red carpet events.
Singerman is a partner emeritus at Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel. The successful firm made early bets on SpaceX, Palantir and Airbnb.
Moseley’s LinkedIn page lists her as a designer and principal at the San Francisco firm Neon Black Design.
Earlier this month, with Alta Way’s ownership still in dispute, the Delaware-registered 800 Corte Madera took control of it anyway. The trust placed a padlock on the entrance gate. Down came an official town sign about keeping dogs on leash. Up went new signs saying the owner decides who’s allowed on the trail. Surveillance cameras now monitor people coming and going, recording both audio and video.
Photo by Nikki Silverstein.
“Many neighbors are hesitant to speak publicly about Alta Woods because they fear retaliation, including lawsuits or harm to their businesses,” Karen Lorentson, a neighbor who has helped lead the opposition, said.
A spokesperson for the trust, speaking on background, said there has recently been vandalism on Alta Way and drones flying over the 800 Corte Madera property.
The takeover escalated the battle between 800 Corte Madera and the neighbors. But it actually started in February 2024, when the trust mailed nearby residents notice of the driveway plan.
Trust representatives have framed the second driveway as a matter of family safety. Attorney Todd Williams of HSW, LLP, who currently represents 800 Corte Madera, said Central Marin Fire Chief Ruben Martin testified the driveway would “cut emergency response times” and help evacuate the neighborhood in a wildfire.
But in an email to neighbor Brenda Brown, Martin described it differently. In July 2025, Brown asked him in writing whether the driveway was “absolutely necessary.”
“No, the driveway is not necessary for us to reach the property,” he wrote. “However, we will always support a secondary exit from every home, parcel, and/or community.”
The Planning Commission approved the driveway 4-1 in May 2025, adding a condition that 800 Corte Madera hold two more meetings with neighbors before construction could begin.
Neighbors and 800 Corte Madera representatives had already met twice before the commission’s approval, with nothing resolved. Yann Bertaud and Karen Lorentson filed a formal appeal in June 2025. Eventually, more than 60 property owners signed on.
Tensions ramped up as the appeal hearing approached. The trust’s then-attorney, Len Rifkind, asked the town for police protection, citing threats against the owners. Neighbors say they don’t recognize much of what Rifkind described, and that some was taken out of context.
One alleged threat came from a letter a resident sent to the town opposing the driveway. Using hyperbole, he wrote, “prescient public representatives should foresee mobs with pitchforks and torches, especially at election time.” The 800 Corte Madera owners weren’t even mentioned.
Lorentson maintains another alleged threat was a joke in poor taste made by a 77-year-old resident during a meeting with the trust representatives. He said that the owners’ children would get bullied at school.
“They recognized it was a joke,” Lorentson said. “But it came out as being a threat in their report.”
In a packed room on Aug. 5, 2025, the Corte Madera Town Council heard the appeal. Lorentson presented the neighbors’ position, and Rifkind represented the trust. The hearing ran for almost four hours.
A neighbor, Barry Cohen, told the council during public comment, “I don’t care if they’re wealthy, but they just don’t deserve any more privilege than the rest of us. We’re all the same.”
Council member Fred Casissa made a point of apologizing to the 800 Corte Madera owners for comments he called “detrimental” and “derogatory.”
The council voted 3-2 to grant the appeal, denying the driveway. Pat Ravasio, Eli Beckman and James Andrews voted yes. Casissa and Rosa Thomas voted no.
Facing the loss, the trust developed a new strategy for a second driveway. California’s SB9 law lets property owners split certain lots and add a second unit through a streamlined process towns have little power to block. In December 2025, Corte Madera received two SB9 applications, each proposing a driveway across the paper street, a road that appears on a map but was never paved. Initially, the town denied them.
On March 2, 2026, the trust sued the town over its decision to uphold the neighbors’ appeal. Two separate efforts were now in play to force a driveway across Alta Way.
Then-town manager Adam Wolff approved the SB9 applications on June 5, 2026, but made it clear the approval didn’t resolve who has rights to Alta Way, a question only a court could decide.
“Other parties have property rights in the paper street, some of whom have opposed the project,” Wolff wrote in his approval letter. “If other parties are successful in preventing the proposed construction on the paper street, the applicant will have to amend the SB 9 applications to provide alternative access.”
Neighbors organized, forming the Alta Woods Preservation Group and hiring real estate attorney Jeffrey Belote of Clark Hill LLP. A primary concern was that the town and trust were working to settle the driveway lawsuit, without regard for other people’s rights to the road.
As far back as they can remember, the path has belonged to everyone. The Town of Corte Madera never claimed it. Neither did Marin County. Residents did.
The neighbors maintain Alta Way, trimming trees and clearing debris. So do the owners of 800 Corte Madera.
In an August letter to the attorneys representing the town and the trust, Belote asserted that a 1906 subdivision map gave more than 250 property owners a lasting right to use the road.
“Use of Alta Way paper street by both Chapman subdivision homeowners as well as the public at large as a walking and hiking trail for over sixty years has prescriptively extinguished any right to utilize it for vehicular traffic,” Belote wrote.
After the trust installed the padlocks and signs this month, Belote sent a cease and desist to Williams, 800 Corte Madera’s attorney. Citing state law, he said the trust doesn’t establish any rights to the property through such maneuvers and demanded the removal of the locks, signs and any cameras on Alta Way by the evening of Sept. 28.
“Your clients gain nothing by locking or attempting to fence it off except expose themselves to a legal action they cannot win,” Belote said.
Williams disputed Belote’s claims in a statement to the Pacific Sun. Paving a portion of Alta Way is “consistent with its intended use,” he maintained.
“While it’s private property, the owners don’t intend to restrict the current access to the paper road,” he said. “The proposal would not change the use or prevent pedestrians from walking in the same area they do now.”
Taking aim at Ravasio, one of three council members who voted to uphold the neighbors’ appeal, Williams said that she’s wasting taxpayer money “to turn a privately owned dead-end strip of land into a public path to nowhere.”
Right now, she’s a lightning rod for criticism. The council member is under investigation for violating California’s Brown Act, which lets councils meet behind closed doors to discuss litigation strategy, but bars them from disclosing what’s said.
Ravasio told the neighbors the council had voted to enter into settlement negotiations with the trust, something she said the council had agreed she could share.
“Everybody was in agreement that we should give them that notification,” she said.
But she also revealed the 4-1 vote tally, letting the group know the other council members had voted against them.
“I didn’t even know I blundered,” she said. “There’d been three of us that approved the appeal, and now only one of us was saying, ‘Wait a minute, what is it we’re settling? And … why are we doing this so quickly?’ I was all alone.”
Town officials referred the matter to the Marin County district attorney’s office and the county civil grand jury. On Sept. 15, the council also voted to hire an outside investigator to look into potential Brown Act violations from March through September 2026, budgeting up to $15,000 for the work.
There’s another accusation that Ravasio violated the Brown Act. A trust representative, speaking on background, confirmed a recording exists of this reporter interviewing Ravasio at Alta Way’s gate in early September. The footage, the representative said, shows her repeatedly disclosing confidential information.
Signs on the property warned of video surveillance but said nothing about recording audio. Ravasio and this reporter didn’t know the conversation was being captured.
It has been sent to the DA’s office and the town’s independent investigator, according to the trust representative. District Attorney Lori Frugoli declined to comment on whether her office received it.
The lawsuit is still pending. Belote’s cease and desist deadline has passed. The fight over Alta Woods may have just begun.
