"It's not like he picked up a book one day and was like, 'Let me find the best place to invest.' It's that he personally loves it here,'" said Claire Totten, a spokeswoman for Esperanza Carmel LLC, the local branch of his international real estate company.

Still, Pastor has created quite the buzz in this gracefully aging town where, according to Zillow, the typical home price is $2.2 million.

During a scuffle last summer, the city administrator took a swing at an art gallery owner who accused local officials of being xenophobic for slowing one of Pastor's projects. And the billionaire's local real estate portfolio burst into international headlines this year after an article by SF Gate quoted an anonymous business owner who said people were "terrified" of his intentions.

Soon afterward, Pastor showed up to a City Council meeting via Zoom and said he would "like to inform those who feel terrified by my presence" that he would be in town a few days later: "So I suggest they either take a vacation during this period or come and meet me for a relaxation class."

Pastor — who, according to the French newspaper Le Monde, has squabbled over lucrative development contracts with associates of Monaco's Prince Albert II — has more humble antagonists in Carmel-by-the-Sea: the City Council, the Planning Commission and the Historic Resources Board.

The city has rejected several of his design proposals, including two for The Pit.

Development — including upgrades to private homes — is notoriously slow here. The city strictly regulates architecture to maintain the so-called village character of this woodsy place. Carmel uses no street addresses (people give their homes whimsical names instead), and has no streetlights or sidewalks in residential areas.

Eastwood, who was mayor in the1980s, got involved in local politics after fighting with the City Council over what he said were unreasonable restrictions on the design of an office building he wanted to erect. Pastor now owns that building.

Pastor "loves that it's a bit idiosyncratic," Totten said. "Carmel is a little bit etched in time. The world moves on, but Carmel is still Carmel."

Pastor's local defenders question whether he is being discriminated against because he is too rich.

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