Randall Bean and Elizabeth Black, whose successful and distinguished professional lives are centered in Boston, first bought a vacation home in Stonington Borough in 2007.

They made friends, joined community organizations and decided they liked it enough to move up, purchasing in 2014 an older home in need of renovations directly on the water.

Little did they know they were moving into a den of unbridled litigiousness.

This story of the Beans and their two sons becoming the victims of a legal firestorm from many of their new neighbors comes from their own lawyers' counterclaims, suggesting the Bean family has been harassed and defamed since their move from central Stonington Borough to Water Street.

The counterclaim was filed last week in the lawsuit, now in federal court, brought by Water Street neighbors Dave and Reba Williams of Greenwich, retired New York money managers, and their Madison Avenue lawyer, assisted by the local firm of Geraghty & Bonnano.

The Williamses, who are in their 80s, claim, strangely enough, that the Beans remodeled their new house with the express purpose of spying on them.

The Williamses also had sued the previous owners of the Beans' property.

Careful readers might remember the Williamses as the couple who wrote a blog in 2011 complaining about life in Stonington Borough, the lack of privacy, poorly run charities and inadequate beautification efforts in their neighborhood.

They said then they were planning to buy pepper spray and possibly a stun gun and wouldn't hesitate to use them on anyone who intruded "in or outside our house or property."

With their new lawsuit against the Beans, they became the third neighboring household to sue the newcomers.

Martina Durner and Larry Alstiel of 31 Water St., across the street, along with their next door neighbor, Paul Koushouris of 33 Water St., filed suit challenging the unanimous approval by the Stonington Borough Planning & Zoning Commission of the Beans' renovation to their home, a remodeling that did not change the footprint of the building.

Those claims eventually were settled with an agreement now attached to the Beans' deed that precludes specified changes to the property, presumably to protect the neighbor's view of the water, over the Bean property, they enjoy from across the street.

Durner and Alstiel are the principal witnesses cited in the Williamses' pending lawsuit against the Beans.

This is apparently what the welcome wagon on Water Street looks like.

The counterclaim says the Bean family no longer feels comfortable being outside their own house, because the Williamses equate their presence there with surveillance.

The Beans' counterclaim says the Williamses began to more aggressively harass their family at about the time they received final permission from the state to construct a dock.

Despite opposition from the Williamses, who claimed they had been told they would have the last dock in that area when they built their own, the Stonington Harbor Management Commission approved the Bean dock with a 10-0 vote.

A short time after the final state dock approval, Black got an email from Mrs. Williams that the counterclaim says was the first threat of legal action.

Mrs. Williams also wrote a disparaging and defaming email about the Beans that circulated around town, the counterclaim says.

"I have huge amounts of backup from people who detest you both," Williams wrote to Black. "Should I have to go to court for anything they have all offered support."

Bean wrote back: "We hope to be cordial neighbors ... We possess only goodwill with regard to you. We sincerely hope you will come to feel the same way."

An hour later, Mrs. Williams responded: "As a consequence of your constantly forcing yourselves in our lives we are leaving Stonington. We do not want to live next door to you. Do not contact us again."

This seems especially odd since, according to the counterclaim, they had never met.

An interesting legal point claimed in the counterclaim is that the new row of 14-foot trees the Williamses have planted on the property line with the Beans amount to a zoning violation.

The trees, by nature of the species, are destined to be 30 feet tall, according to the counterclaims, and will block most of the Beans' water views. The "wall of trees" serves no other purpose, the Beans say.

The Beans' lawyers claim the trees are a violation of borough zoning rules that prevent tall fences or buildings and structures that impede views of the water.

That could set an interesting precedent in the dense little waterside village, legally equating hedges with fences, which of course they are.

I feel sorry for the Beans and the way they have come under legal siege. It makes you wonder how people who can't afford lawyers might cope with aggressive litigants next door.

I also feel sorry for their sons, young men starting careers, according to the lawsuit, who have been dragged into the fire of unsubstantiated and public alllegations, just because their parents moved to Stonington's Litigators' Row.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com