Assessed at nearly $2 million, Nantucket waterfront home sells for just $200,000. ‘Inevitably the ocean will win.’ - The Boston Globe
Assessed at nearly $2 million, Nantucket waterfront home sells for only $200,000
A Nantucket waterfront home assessed at nearly $2 million recently sold for a fraction of that price because the ocean is quickly encroaching on the property, devouring more of the beachfront every year.
The home at 28 Sheep Pond Road was purchased on June 26 for $200,000 by an abutter who owns the home next door at 26 Sheep Pond Road, according to Robert F. Ranney, the assessor for the town of Nantucket.
The sale, which was first reported by The Nantucket Current, stands out from other real estate deals on the island where homes typically sell for millions of dollars. But it’s not the first time a house on Sheep Pond Road has plummeted to a bargain basement price because of beach erosion.
When Jane Carlin and her husband, Ben Gifford, bought the home back in 1988, the property was a good distance from the shore, and other homes stood between their house and the water. But over the years, the shoreline has crept closer and closer, and they realized the home would not be habitable for much longer.
“It’s about ready to go in,” Carlin told the Current. “It has really been relentless. It used to be a neighborhood, and you knew who lived where. And now, if you take a drive out there, there’s not much to see.”
Advertisement
Carlin and Gifford could not immediately be reached for comment.
Built in 1979, the 1,783-square-foot Colonial-style home was assessed this year at more than $1.9 million, according to town records.
Carlin said they tried to find a nonprofit that might want to take the home and relocate it.
“All winter I had been really frantically trying to see if any of the organizations would consider taking the house and moving it, and we would help with the cost of moving,” Carlin told the Current. “I didn’t want to see it fall into the ocean or get demolished. But I had no luck whatsoever.”
And then one of their neighbors, Don Vaccaro, contacted them and expressed interest in buying it, according to the Current.
Vaccaro understood the severity of the erosion.
“Basically, the house may not last more than six months,” Vaccaro told the Current. “Inevitably the ocean will win. The house is only temporary, everything in life is temporary.”
Advertisement
That’s especially true on Sheep Pond Road, where structures tend to be difficult to move. “Out there it’s tough, because the roads are skinny dirt roads,” Ranney said in a phone interview.
The Sheep Pond Road area, which is located in the southwest part of the island, has been experiencing erosion at rates of 10 to 15 feet per year on average for many decades, he said. About a dozen homes in the vicinity have disappeared off the map, he estimated.
“It comes and goes. Some years it’s that much. Other times it’s nothing,” Ranney said in a phone interview.
But the trend over time has been clear, Ranney said, and all it takes is one major storm to make irreparable changes.
The fate of waterfront homes that fall victim to erosion differ, depending on the property and the wishes of the owner.
A home at 21 Sheep Pond Road was condemned last year. A 2,625-square-foot property at 6 Sheep Pond Road that was listed in for nearly $2.3 million in September 2023 was ultimately sold for $600,000.
“Some people wait until the last minute. And sometimes that’s too late,” said Ranney. “Other people will move it before it gets to that point, or sell it or gift it.”
Emily Sweeney can be reached at emily.sweeney@globe.com. Follow her @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.