Before the move, Mr. Dahl stopped by the mayor’s cavernous furniture outlet, where he bought a few sofas for the new house and introduced himself. Mr. Dahl said that the mayor expressed no reservations when he notified him he would be opening a pagan house of worship on the property, across from the Lighthouse Pentecostal Church.

On Feb. 5, soon after the Dahls moved in, a code enforcement officer showed up demanding they cease any temple or retail activities on the property. The mayor had issued a written decision that any permit to authorize it “for any use other than residential use is to be denied.”

In a subsequent meeting, Mr. Dahl said, the mayor told him, “You’re not going to open a Pagan anything in my town” — a claim Mr. Robertson strenuously denies.

Meanwhile, Mr. Dahl said, members of the Lighthouse Pentecostal Church, including its founder and bishop, John Scheel, began harassing him, visiting the house numerous times to ask him to convert to Christianity, warning him of the “evil trickery of the Pagan Devil” and calling his number to play gospel music over the phone. The lighthouse was built between February and April; the rotating light, Mr. Dahl said, shone across his windows for weeks.

Image Across the street from Mr. Dahl’s home is the Lighthouse Pentecostal Church. Credit... Lance Murphey for The New York Times

On May 21, Mr. Dahl burst into the Lighthouse Church and complained, boisterously. A week later he was arrested by the Beebe police and charged with harassing communications and disorderly conduct. Mr. Dahl has pleaded not guilty.

Jason Scheel is the son of John Scheel and the pastor of the Lighthouse Church, named for an old Christian hymn. He met a reporter on a recent weekday morning in his office, which is in the base of the lighthouse building, full of rococo furniture and a bust of George Washington.