A hiking-trail dispute between an 86-year-old nuclear physicist and Oprah Winfrey, one of the world’s wealthiest and most famous women, has sparked a lawsuit as she prepares to build a megamansion high above Telluride.

An attorney for retired physicist Charles D. Goodman has filed a lawsuit in San Miguel County District Court claiming that Winfrey’s Yellow Brick Road company, the couple who sold the property to Winfrey and Mountain Village made a below-the-radar deal to close off access to trails that Goodman’s family and his neighbors have had rights to use for nearly three decades.

“I don’t care if Oprah is a neighbor, but if she is going to cut off access to trails, I don’t find that acceptable,” Goodman said Wednesday in a phone interview.

The disputed trails that Goodman still hikes during his summer visits to Telluride cut across 66 acres Winfrey purchased in March for $10.85 million in Mountain Village. Her lots are next to the Telluride Ski Ranches, a residential development where Goodman built a vacation home in 1972.

A spokeswoman for Winfrey’s company issued a statement this week that promised cooperation but didn’t allay fears Winfrey would try to close off access to some of the trails.

“Yellow Brick Road CO LLC will continue to work with the residents of the Ski Ranches HOA to enable them to have reasonable access over portions of the company’s recently acquired property for recreational trail use. It is our hope that we can work together on a usage plan that is mutually agreeable,” read an e-mail from Wendy Luckenbill of the Oprah Winfrey Network and Yellow Brick Road.

The trails in question were established in 1989 as a result of negotiations between Goodman, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., in the winters, and his next-door neighbor, the U.S. Forest Service. The Forest Service later traded land that the trails crossed to the Telluride Ski Co. but insisted, as part of that trade, that trail access continue to be allowed.

The traded land immediately was incorporated into Mountain Village, above Telluride and sold for home sites. Hoyt and Carol Barnett purchased the land now tied to the dispute in the early 1990s. In 2005, the Barnetts’ land was replatted, and the trail easements were recorded in that plat.

The Barnetts also are named in Goodman’s lawsuit because they asked for a “correction” to that plat shortly before they sold the land to Winfrey’s company in March.

Administrative changes were made to the plat without notifying the Goodmans or others affected by the changes.

Robert Korn, the longtime Telluride attorney who is representing the Goodmans, contends the correction erased some of the trail easements and that the changes were made quickly under pressure from Winfrey’s company.

“One month before Oprah closed on the property, the rights of way disappeared entirely,” Korn said.

Thomas Kennedy, a Telluride attorney representing Yellow Brick Road, submitted questions about the trail easements to Mountain Village prior to the sale. He asked whether gates and fencing could be installed on one of trails.

“Is this a mistake?” Kennedy wrote about a trail easement. “Buyer requests that Seller obtain a written clarification from the Town that the reference to a trail was inaccurate and that there was not a trail established or created by the recordation of the 2005 replat.”

Chris Hawkins, the director of community development for Mountain Village, said the plat correction did not close trails at Winfrey’s behest. He said it only cleaned up some ambiguities in the original plat.

“The town is supportive of continued access to Prospect Basin. And we are working with (Winfrey’s) team, and it is pretty clear they want to continue access,” said Hawkins, who is named in the lawsuit along with Daniel Janson, mayor of Mountain Village.

This is Winfrey’s second foray into the Telluride vacation-home market. She owned a vacation home west of Telluride that she sold in the late 1990s.

An architect has been hired to design Winfrey’s mansion and guest home on her new property. That new home will necessitate building a bridge over a ski run, paving new roads and cutting down an estimated 800 to 1,000 trees to comply with Mountain Village’s fire-mitigation policies.

Work on the new road and bridge is expected to begin this summer. Plans have not yet been submitted for the homes.

Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nlofholm