WELLFLEET, Massachusetts. Perched high above the beach on the edge of a sandy bluff, the large brown mansion is being threatened by the waters of Cape Cod Bay. The only question is when.
The multimillion-dollar home’s concrete footings, which overlook the bay, have been completely overrun by erosion. The massive sliding doors that once opened onto a large deck with a hot tub are now blocked by slender wooden slats that keep people from falling 25 feet to the beach below.
The proprietor was aware of it. Before halting construction and entering a stalemate with the town, he demolished the deck and other portions of the house, including a tiny tower that housed the main bedroom. Since then, he has sold the property to a salvage company that claims it will not cover labor costs.
Wellfleet officials are concerned that the fall of the house would harm fragile beds in their port, where farmers cultivate some of the most valuable oysters in New England. According to a report that the town commissioned, the 5,100-square-foot house will fall into the bay in three years, if not sooner.
Its inevitable demise serves as a warning of how precarious construction is along the coast, where sea level rise has accelerated recently due to climate change.
According to John Cumbler, a retired professor of environmental history and member of the Wellfleet Conservation Commission, “the cape has always been moving.” The sand is shifting.
On Cape Cod, on the peninsula’s bay side, the house was constructed in 2010.
In order to prevent erosion, its original owners, Mark and Barbara Blasch, applied to the commission in 2018 for authorization to construct a seawall that was 241 feet wide. The seven volunteer members of the commission opposed the seawall because they believed it might have unexpected consequences for the beach and the bay’s nutrient-carrying water. In addition, they doubted that it would truly save the house.
Cape Cod National Seashore is where the property is located. The seawall’s vital placement within the seashore and Wellfleet Harbor area, containing important habitat and valuable shellfish operations, led the National Seashore Administration to advocate its rejection.
The Blasches lost their appeal of the denial in state district court. There is a pending appeal to the state’s Superior Court.
Even though the house’s future was uncertain, it was purchased for $5.5 million in 2022 by a man from New York named John Bonomi. For this report, Bonomi’s lawyers choose not to comment.
On Monday, January 27, 2025, a house in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, is perched on a sandy bluff with a view of a beach.Andre Muggiati/AP Photo
Bryan McCormack, a coastal processes specialist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Sea Grant, estimated last year that the bluffs are degrading between 3.8 and 5.6 feet year in a report he wrote for Wellfleet. According to the analysis, collapse could occur in as little as three years, but probably sooner.
According to the study, debris from a collapse might end up in Wellfleet Harbor, where the town’s eponymous oysters—which are well-known to shellfish enthusiasts—take two to three years to mature.
The house is heavily insulated with fiberglass. According to Cumbler, it contains hazardous substances. The oyster industry in Wellfleet, which is our main industry outside of tourism, could be at jeopardy if that hazardous substance enters Wellfleet Harbor, where the currents will carry it.
“Keep off the dunes” is written on a sign in front of a house on a sandy bluff in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on Monday, January 27, 2025.Andre Muggiati/AP Photo
“Yes, we understand that the house is in danger of falling into the sea,” Bonomi told us back in October. “We will give you a plan by January for what we will do with the house,” Cumbler stated. We requested a strategy to get it out of danger.
At the commission’s January meeting, that strategy was to be presented. However, in December, Bonomi’s lawyer, Tom Moore, wrote to the municipality to inform them that Bonomi had sold the house to CQN Salvage, a business that Moore was also representing and that had been incorporated in October. According to Moore, the town is under notice to take any action it thinks appropriate to stop the embankment from collapsing and the negative effects of additional erosion. Although CQN Salvage is willing to assist the municipality with these initiatives, it will not provide funding.
Who owns CQN Salvage is unclear. No officials are listed in its New York state incorporation filings. Moore refused to be interviewed by The Associated Press.
Moore informed the panel during his video appearance at the January meeting that the house’s removal would cost at least $1 million.
You intend to do nothing but let it fall into the ocean, then? Moore was questioned by the town’s conservation agent, Lecia McKenna.
Moore replied, “I’m going to ask you not to let it fall into the water.”
The commission decided to extend the timeframe for completing its enforcement order until June 1.
On Monday, January 27, 2025, a house in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, is perched on a sandy bluff with a view of a beach.Andre Muggiati/AP Photo
The town is left to only keep an eye on the residence for the time being. Sand was spotted cascading down the bluffs and 20 mph gusts were blowing when the AP last visited the location.
In the last 90 years, the sea level at neighboring Falmouth has risen 11 inches, but the rate is quickening. According to an AP examination of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration statistics, the sea level near Cape Cod was increasing 0.16 inches per year between 1995 and 2024, which was quicker than the previous 30-year period.
It’s challenging to link erosion at a single property to climate change and sea level rise, according to McCormack, the Woods Hole expert who wrote the analysis for the town. He added that for tens of thousands of years, Cape Cod has been deteriorating.
However, he claimed that the bluffs had retreated 54 feet since 2014 and that the rate of erosion during the past ten years has surpassed the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management’s long-term rates.
–The Associated Press/Andre Muggiati’s story
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Mary Katherine Wildeman, an AP data journalist, contributed.
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