A stunning Nantucket summer home that was 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 purchased their dream home 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 claim it.
The 1,700-square-foot home, valued at a whopping $1.9 million in 2024, now sits dangerously close to the Atlantic Ocean after years of relentless erosion have eroded the shoreline.
“He’s almost ready to go in,” Jane said. Nantucket Current. “It’s been really unforgiving. It used to be a neighborhood and you knew who lived where. And now if you drive up 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 summer home on Nantucket that was once worth nearly $2 million has sold for just $200,000 and the owners couldn’t be happier about it
Vaccaro rushed to buy the distressed home for just $200,000.
“All winter I was desperately trying to see if any of the organizations would consider taking the house and moving it, and if we would help with the cost of moving it,” Jane said. “I didn’t want to see it fall into the ocean or be demolished. But I had no luck at all.”
“We were like, ‘Wow! We’re not going to say no,'” Carlin added.
“You don’t want to sell to someone when you know a storm could wash it away next week,” Carlin said when asked why they didn’t put the house up for sale. “We wanted to be ethical and honest about it. Then this miracle fell out of the sky and we sold it to them for nothing.”
“I was really emotional the other day leaving home for the last time,” she added. “But we’re also lucky. I don’t feel bad for myself at all. Given the terrible housing situation on Nantucket, we’re just grateful for the time we had there.”
Vaccaro, who rents out his adjacent property for up to $13,000 a week, is well aware of the fate of his new acquisition.
Jane Carlin and Ben Gifford, who purchased their dream home 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 claim it.
The couple received an unexpected offer on their home at 28 Sheep Pond Rd from their neighbor, Don Vaccaro (pictured), a businessman who owns the property next door.
A photograph released by the Nantucket Department of Natural Resources shows properties perched precariously on eroding cliffs.
“Basically, the house can’t last more than six months,” Vaccaro said. “Inevitably, the ocean will win. The house is just 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 destroyed, we can have additional land,” he said.
‘We also plan to implement some erosion mitigation strategies that will likely prolong the time before the house becomes habitable. The simplest is the planting of seagrass, which should be done within a few weeks. The second is a low-rise (less than 30cm) V-shaped biodegradable fence, which has been successful in some other areas to some extent.’
The idyllic island of Nantucket, a playground for the rich and famous, could disappear from the map entirely by the end of the century, according to alarming projections.
A group of homeowners on Nantucket recently lost a battle to preserve a self-funded “shield” they erected to protect their homes from the sea. Pictured: a flooded home on the island
This summer draw, known for its pristine beaches and quaint cobblestone 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), Much of the island could be submerged by 2100.
Nantucket is also expected to experience sea level rise of 1.15 feet by 2040, 2.36 feet by 2060, 4.36 feet by 2080, and 6.66 feet by 2100.
These projections may be just the tip of the iceberg, as they do not take into account other factors such as destructive storms, powerful waves and increased erosion.
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