From the water, the private sea wall in Rom Reddy’s backyard looks like a concrete fortress guarding his mansion in Isle of Palms, S.C., a wealthy beachfront community east of Charleston. A sign on it reads: “No trespassing. Private property.”

Since 2023, he has been in a legal battle with South Carolina’s primary environmental agency and various other environmental organizations that say the wall is worsening erosion and breaking a longstanding law that has protected the state’s sapphire coastline, one of its major economic engines.

Now, instead of fighting the state, Mr. Reddy is hoping to run it.

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