A stunning Nantucket summer home once worth nearly $2 million has sold for just $200,000 — and the owners couldn’t be happier about it.
Jane Carlin and Ben Gifford, who bought their dream escape on the west end of Nantucket in 1988, have been forced to sell their beloved property for a fraction of its value as Mother Nature threatens to reclaim it.
The 1,700-square-foot home, estimated to be worth a whopping $1.9 million in 2024, now sits dangerously close to the Atlantic Ocean as years of relentless erosion have eaten away at the shoreline.
“It’s ready to go in,” Jane told the Nantucket Current. “It’s been really merciless. It used to be a neighborhood and you knew who lived where. And now, if you take a car there, there’s not much to see.’
But the couple received an unexpected offer on their home on Sheep Pond Rd from their neighbor, Don Vaccaro, a businessman who owns the property next door.
A stunning Nantucket summer home once worth nearly $2 million has sold for just $200,000 — and the owners couldn’t be happier about it
Vaccaro stepped in to buy the distressed home for just $200,000.
“Over the winter I was 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 the move,” Jane said. “I didn’t want to see it fall into the ocean or be destroyed. But I had no luck.’
‘We said ‘Wow! We won’t say no,” added Carlin.
“You don’t want to sell to somebody when you know a storm could wipe it out next week,” Carlin said when asked why they didn’t put the house on the market. “We wanted to be ethical and honest about it. Then this miracle fell from the sky above and we sold it to him for nothing.
“It was so emotional the other day leaving home for the last time,” she added. “But we are also really lucky. I don’t feel sorry for myself at all. Given the dire housing situation on Nantucket, we are just grateful for the time we had there.’
Vaccaro, who rents out his adjacent property for up to $13,000 a week, is aware of the fate of his new purchase.
Jane Carlin and Ben Gifford, who bought their dream escape on the west end of Nantucket in 1988, have been forced to sell their beloved property for a fraction of its value as Mother Nature threatens to reclaim it.
The couple received a surprise offer on their home at 28 Sheep Pond Rd from their neighbour, Don Vaccaro (pictured) a businessman who owns the property next door.
A photo released by the Nantucket Department of Natural Resources shows properties perched precariously on eroded rocks.
“Basically, the house can’t last more than six months,” Vaccaro said. Inevitably the ocean will win. Home is only temporary, everything in life is temporary.’
“Since we own 26 Sheep Pond Road, there are some creative things we can do to extend the life of the house and even if the house is torn down, we can have extra land,” he said.
“We also plan to implement several erosion mitigation strategies that will likely extend the time before the house becomes habitable. The easiest is to plant the seaweed – which should be done within weeks. The second is a V-shaped, low-height (less than 1 foot) biodegradable mud fence, which has been successful in some other areas to some extent.’
The idyllic island of Nantucket, playground for the rich and famous, could be completely wiped off the map by the end of the century, according to alarming predictions.
A group of Nantucket homeowners recently lost a battle to keep a self-funded ‘shield’ they erected to keep their homes safe from the sea. Pictured: a flooded house on the island
This summer hotspot, known for its pristine beaches and quaint cobbled streets, is facing an existential threat as rising sea levels threaten to engulf large parts of the island.
According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), most of the island could be submerged by 2100.
Nantucket is also expected to experience 1.15 feet of sea level rise by 2040, 2.36 feet by 2060, 4.36 feet by 2080 and 6.66 feet by 2100.
These forecasts may only be the tip of the iceberg as they do not take into account other factors such as destructive storms, powerful waves and further erosion.