1. Complainant seeks to enjoin the use of certain lands by the defendants for business purposes, on the ground that such use would be violative of an implied covenant of the complainant's grantor to whose title, rights and liabilities incident thereto the defendants have succeeded. Held, the manner in which the entire tract was laid out, the legend written on the map of the development, and the insertion of the slightly varying restrictions in all the deeds of conveyance, with certain exceptions, evidence a plain intent to develop the tract in question as a highly restricted residential community, in which business was to be altogether banned, except for hotels of a certain size, and that the scheme or plan of development was conceived for the benefit of all of the lots on the tract except those specifically preserved in the legend. Aside from these strong evidential facts, there is overwhelming and undisputed evidence that by other acts and express declarations the developers represented to prospective purchasers and to the complainant in particular, that all lots were to be uniformly restricted, and that the conduct of business, except as to hotels, would be entirely banned, and that the plan was for the development of a highly restricted residential community. These circumstances and representations raise an equitable estoppel against complainant's grantor and his successors in title with notice.
2. The interdiction against business is common to all the restrictions contained in the several deeds given by complainant's grantor. Minor variations occur, but they are not important if the general scheme is not affected.
3. Defendants, heirs of one of the original developers of the tract in question, now want to violate it, more than fifty years after it was conceived and twenty-five years after his death, maintaining that certain minor violations indicate an abandonment of the neighborhood scheme. Held, before violations can constitute an abandonment of a neighborhood scheme, they must be so general as to indicate either a change in the neighborhood or a clear intent on the part of the property owners generally to abandon the original plan. None of the violations testified to have in any way affected complainant's enjoyment of his property according to the original plan.
4. Minor violations of a neighborhood plan are no impediment to the enforcement of the restrictive covenants by one like the complainant for whose benefit they were made and who has not violated them himself.
5. Though one of the original developers of the tract in question who conceived of the neighborhood plan may have thought that the restrictive covenants in the several deeds were personal to him, his ideas as to their legal effect and the rights of other grantees thereunder are not controlling. By the release of his own personal right he could not derogate from the vested rights of others.
6. The complainant was among the last to purchase lots on the restricted tract in question, and he purchased upon the direct representation of the owner as to the residential character of the tract and the restrictive covenants imposed. The character of the community has then already been established. The developers reserved the right to dispose of only certain lots unrestricted, and the defendants' lots are not among these. Held, there was, in effect, an implied covenant by the original developers to insert restrictions against business in all subsequent deeds and to refrain from using for business purposes any of the lots not reserved, title to which remained in the grantor. That covenant was binding upon the complainant's grantor and his subsequent grantees with notice.
7. Since the defendants took their lots by inheritance and not by deed, they stand in the original developer-grantor's shoes. The question of notice is not, therefore, important, although notice is freely admitted.
8. The implied covenant of the grantor to subject all retained property to covenants like those contained in a deed to a particular grantee is just as binding as the express covenant of the grantee named in the deed.
PER CURIAM.
The decree appealed from will be affirmed, for the reasons stated in the opinion delivered by Vice-Chancellor Berry in the court of chancery.
For affirmance — THE CHIEF-JUSTICE, PARKER, CASE, BODINE, DONGES, HEHER, PERSKIE, HETFIELD, DEAR, WELLS, WOLFSKEIL, RAFFERTY, WALKER, JJ. 13.
For reversal — None.