LOS ANGELES — In the wealthy hillside neighborhoods bordering Beverly Hills, neighbors are blase about the famous names who live next door and keep to themselves.

But the proposal to build a mega-mansion in Benedict Canyon has drawn the residents out from their gated mansions and onto the twisting streets of their stately canyon neighborhood in protest.

Twenty neighbors held a press conference Tuesday to draw attention to the proposed compound that’s roughly the size of the famed Hearst Castle and located in the coveted 90210 ZIP code.

They complained that the project is oversized for the narrow streets, that years of construction will destroy their quality of life, that the proposal would create mudslide and fire hazards and that the unidentified owner wasn’t acting neighborly.

The neighborhood is home to Jay Leno, David Beckham, Bruce Springsteen, Lisa Kudrow and Michael Ovitz. Residents say the compound’s size – a 42,681-square-foot house, a 27,000-square-foot villa, a guest house, staff quarters and a gatehouse – doesn’t fit in with the neighborhood of stately mansions.

“The pool house is bigger than my house,” Michael Eisenberg, a neighbor, said.

The person who bought the 5.2 acre hillside lot for $12 million set up a business, Tower Lane Properties, Inc. in London, hired lawyers and contractors and made them sign secrecy agreements.

The property is rumored to be the future home of Saudi royalty. Mansour Fustok – King Abdullah’s former brother-in-law and the uncle of one of the king’s sons, according to the Los Angeles Times – is listed on city planning documents as president of Tower Lane Properties.