HOTEL OWNER'S A BEACH BUM

HOTEL OWNER'S A BEACH BUM
July 17, 2008 --

BILLIONAIRE Manhattan hotelier Patrick Denihan pledges to make his guests comfortable - but get too close to his oceanfront home on the Jersey shore, and he'll turn into a nasty pit bull.

A Trenton couple tells Page Six that Denihan, who owns Manhattan's Benjamin and Affinia hotels, went ballistic last weekend when they set their umbrella up on the public beach near his house in Bay Head.

"He comes out and starts bullying us. He says, 'This is private property. You have to leave right now,' " Jeff Pillets - who, like his girlfriend, Elise Young, is a reporter for North Jersey newspaper The Record - told us. "When we told him there's no such thing as a private beach in New Jersey, he said, 'If you want a scene, well, make a scene, I'll call the police.' And he just stands behind us and says. 'I'm not going to leave until you leave,' so Elise called the police.

"When they arrived, they told us, 'This guy's crazy, you are perfectly within your rights,' and went to speak to him," Pillets continued. "What kills me is that after the police left, he says absolutely nothing. If he had one ounce of class, he would've come over and said, 'Hey, sorry for wrecking your day.' And this guy is one of the big hospitality magnates and talks about how well people are treated at his hotels - then he goes and tries to kick people off a public beach. We were perfectly well behaved. I was listening to Garrison Keillor on my iPod and my girlfriend was reading 'The History of the Depression.' "

Young has written to New Jersey Public Advocate Ronald Chen asking him to investigate the incident. "We were being harassed," she writes. "How many others illegally have been bullied off this beach by property owners who feel entitled to enforce their own rules?"

Denihan's office said he would have no comment.