Backstreet Boys\u00a0singer Brian Littrell says a local Florida sheriff\u2019s office isn\u2019t doing enough to protect his multimillion-dollar beachfront property from trespassers and is asking a judge for an order commanding deputies to do so.<\/p>\n
The petition filed last month by Littrell\u2019s company in a Florida Panhandle county touches on\u00a0a perennial tug-of-war\u00a0between usually-wealthy oceanfront property owners and beach-loving members of the public, especially in Florida, which has 825 miles of sandy beaches.<\/p>\n
Under Florida law, any sand on a beach below the high tide water mark is public. <\/p>\n
Many homeowners own the sand down to the average high-water line, though some counties over the decades have passed local ordinances that let the public use otherwise private beaches for sunbathing, fishing and walking if people have historically had access for those purposes.<\/p>\n
Backstreet Boys\u00a0singer Brian Littrell says his local Florida sheriff\u2019s office isn\u2019t doing enough to protect his multimillion-dollar beachfront property in Santa Rosa Beach from trespassers. Instagram<\/p>\n
Property records show that Littrell\u2019s company purchased the property in Santa Rosa Beach in Walton County in 2023 for $3.8 million.<\/p>\n
A spokeswoman for the Walton County Sheriff\u2019s Office said Wednesday that the office doesn\u2019t comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Walton County Sheriff\u2019s Office prides itself on handling every situation, call for service, or interaction with professionalism using a customer service approach,\u201d public information officer Lindsey Darby said in an email. \u201cThis has always been our philosophy and will remain so moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the petition, Littrell\u2019s company said that chairs, umbrellas and small tables had been put out on the beach, as well as \u201cNo Trespassing\u201d signs, to mark it as private property. <\/p>\n
Any sand on a beach below the high tide water mark is public, according to Florida law. AP<\/p>\n
But that effort had been in vain \u201cas numerous trespassers have set out to antagonize, bully, and harass the Littrell family by regularly, every day, trespassing,\u201d according to the petition.<\/p>\n
The sheriff\u2019s office has refused requests to remove trespassers or charge them, and the family has had to hire private security, the petition said.<\/p>\n
Walton County, which has become home to several famous property owners besides Littrell over the past two decades, has been at the center of a recent fight between private property owners and the public over access to beaches.<\/p>\n
Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, Kevin Richardson and AJ McLean of Backstreet Boys perform at the Palomino Stage during the 2025 Stagecoach Festival on April 27, 2025 Getty Images for Stagecoach<\/p>\n
A\u00a02018 Florida law\u00a0that stemmed from a Walton County ordinance blocked any local government from passing ordinances dealing with public beach access until affected homeowners were notified, a public hearing was held and a court had determined whether a private beach was historically open to the public.<\/p>\n
Florida lawmakers this year approved legislation that restored control back to local authorities, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law last month in Santa Rosa Beach, the beach town where Littrell\u2019s house is located.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Backstreet Boys\u00a0singer Brian Littrell says a local Florida sheriff\u2019s office isn\u2019t doing enough to protect his multimillion-dollar beachfront…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[9826,236,88,2808],"class_list":{"0":"post-16741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-backstreet-boys","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}