A Delco cheesesteak entrepreneur started to build a mansion in a modest Broomall neighborhood. His neighbors aren’t happy.

Nicholas Reynolds promised to be the best neighbor in Broomall.

In an October letter Reynolds sent around the block, the Delaware County entrepreneur behind Delco Steaks sought the community’s support to finish an under-construction mega-home in a neighborhood of split-level properties.

“Please be there for us, we need you!” wrote Reynolds, assuring that he would help shovel snow, jump car batteries, even watch over children at the bus stop, if his neighbors would support the behemoth construction project that was up for review before the Marple Township zoning board that month.

Many neighbors are struggling to return Reynolds' warmth.

As Reynolds’ letter makes the rounds on the social media site Reddit, Broomall residents are airing harsh opinions about the entrepreneur’s new abode after tensions stewed under the neighborhood’s surface for months.

“Absolutely no one wants to live next to or face this monstrosity!” one Reddit user commented. “A house that size on that small lot makes me feel claustrophobic just looking at it,” wrote another.

Many of the surrounding homes are products of the postwar 1950s, when properties in the burgeoning Delaware County suburbs were a gateway to the middle class.

But if a man’s home is his castle, then Reynolds is building himself a fortress.

Some neighbors have complained that the partially built home’s soaring facade, rivaling the surrounding tree line, leaves little skyline left on either side of the lot.

More frustrating for others, Reynolds’ builders had already constructed a good chunk of the nearly 5,000-square-foot property months before he courted his neighbors’ support.

Marple officials slapped Reynolds with a stop-work order late this summer, alleging that the entrepreneur skirted local zoning regulations.

Strain between Reynolds, a well-known figure in the Marple community, and township officials has since compounded, as the parties litigate how the entrepreneur should finish the project without squandering diminishing goodwill in the neighborhood.

Reynolds did not return multiple requests for comment. His lawyer instructed The Inquirer not to contact him and did not provide a statement.

A petition from a group of Broomall neighbors against Reynolds’ home has garnered around 100 signatures from 80 households.

“You look at this house, it’s as much as three times as large” as surrounding split-levels, said neighbor Bob Duncan, who advocates for the group.

Another neighbor, who requested anonymity over fear of retribution, was more blunt: “We want the house taken down.”

Despite his neighbors’ protest, Reynolds appeared closer to victory during a Nov. 20 zoning board hearing, his second appearance before officials as he seeks variances to finish the project.

There, Reynolds’ attorney, the township, and neighbors settled on drafting a tentative building proposal that would serve as a compromise.

The new plan would see Reynolds shrink the property’s footprint by cutting back a section of the garage and the rear porch, as well as planting dividers between his property line and another.

Still, if officials approve Reynolds’ variances at a Dec. 18 meeting, much of the home will remain standing, and some neighbors are beginning to accept that the entrepreneur has largely gotten his way.

“We’re not going to support it,” Duncan said of the compromise. “But we also won’t take a formal position in opposition.”

It’s not the first time the entrepreneur is leaving his mark on Marple.

A longtime Broomall resident, Reynolds is cofounder of the Marple Civic Association, serves on the town’s public school board (almost all of his children attend private schools), and is co-owner of the Marple Public House bar and restaurant and the Splash swim club, in addition to Delco Steaks.

In 2019, Reynolds’ Marple Public House snagged one of a handful of newly minted liquor licenses in the long-dry township, where Prohibition had reigned for more than three-quarters of a century.

His pitch for a new home was rife with emotion: Reynolds, in his letter to neighbors, underscored the heartbreak over the recent death of his young son, a tragedy that spurred his family’s decision to leave their prior home in Newtown Square.

Reynolds settled on a split-level on Willowbrook Road, purchasing it in February for around $600,000, according to county property records — on par with nearby homes that sell for at least half a million dollars — and filing a plan to renovate and expand it.

The home even held sentimental value, as Reynolds described a childhood friendship with the former owner’s family and fond memories of days spent playing on the block outside.

“It was perfect … we found a place to bring happiness into our broken hearts,” Reynolds wrote.

But Reynolds’ plans soon changed, and drastically. An about-face came after what Reynolds told neighbors was the discovery of water and termite damage in the split-level’s walls — the equivalent of throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars “into a dumpster,” he wrote to neighbors.

Reynolds insisted in his letter that the township had given him approval to pour the new home’s sprawling foundation. But according to Marple’s stop-work order, township inspectors alleged that Reynolds deviated from what they initially approved.

The home was “not being built in accordance” with the two site plans Reynolds’ builders had submitted to Marple, township attorney John McBlain said during the first variance hearing in October.

When code officials visited Reynolds’ construction site in July, they observed the garage’s foundation had been poured “too close to the property line” and found the structure’s footprint violated several setback codes, according to the stop-work order.

Marple’s zoning solicitor, Matt Bilker, and code official, Joe Romano, did not respond to requests for comment. Township Manager Lawrence Gentile declined to comment.

Meanwhile, neighbors continued to complain about the size of the home as the foundation for the walls went up in July, even as township inspectors visited the property multiple times and told Reynolds his home was in violation of regulations.

Lee Stivale, Reynolds’ lawyer, told the zoning board in October that his client acted in good faith because his plans were approved by the township and inspectors did not stop him during construction, and said the variances should be granted on the legal principle of estoppel.

As neighbors ponder how the project got so far without what they saw as adequate intervention, some are asking more pressing questions, like whether it would be feasible to move elsewhere.

Saying the drama had soured a sense of peace — and raised suspicions of township dealings in general — the anonymous neighbor said with dismay: “It makes me want to get out of Delaware County.”