“Paradise awaits.” That’s the promise atop the online property listing for 410 Surf Drive in Falmouth. The first three photos show the unobstructed view: soft sand and the gentle waves of Vineyard Sound.
“Beachfront Escape with Breathtaking Views,” the listing continues. “Live your dream on the water's edge!”
Listing agent Amy Vickers recently stood on the beach and gazed out at all that waterfront living offers. This—she gestured, waving her hand across the vista—doesn’t take much of a sales pitch.
“I mean, the big sale is, I'm standing here and I'm looking at the little black-and-white ducks. And the Osprey nests are right there,” she said. “You're on the beach, you can go for a swim. To me, that's enough.”
And it would have to be. Because scroll to the fourth photo online and see what you’d really be buying: 10 wooden posts that resemble telephone poles sticking out of the sand, with a few cross beams on top. This set of weathered pilings on 2,200 square feet of loose sand offers a suggestion of what could exist on them — in a future or a past tense.
“These are pilings where a home used to sit,” Vickers said. “We believe [the home] was blown away in Hurricane Bob. … We've been told that there are pictures with it floating over there in the water.”
Based on that timeline, these posts have stood without a home on top for 34 years. So how much could they cost? The asking price is $595,000.
“It started actually at $695,000,” she said. “So it's been lowered to $595,000.”
Of course, any property you buy, you have to be able to reach. But that isn’t a sure thing on Surf Drive, a coastal road that’s just a few feet above sea level. In the face of sea level rise, the town of Falmouth is considering a retreat from the road. A report by a coastal engineering firm suggests that within 25 years, the town should start phasing out services to private homes on Surf Drive. And within 50 years, the report says, the pavement should be removed, allowing what’s there to return to nature.
But Vickers is undaunted.
“People understand that, you know, coastal living is changing and people are just going to have to adapt to be here and to be on the water and on the beach,” she said.
For however long the land lasts, the next owners will have to decide what they want to do with it. A few options come to mind, Vickers said. The property could be handed to a conservation organization. Or someone could turn the pilings into a summer cabana — essentially, by hanging a sheet overtop and sitting underneath, for a half-million-dollars’ worth of shade.
Or, someone could do what about a dozen of the neighbors have done: build an elevated, roughly 400-square foot cottage. But that, of course, would require the pilings to be structurally sound. And… they’re structurally sound, right?
“No, not necessarily. No, no, no,” Vickers said. “They would have to be tested. These might have been fine in the 80s. You know, we don't know how far they go down, so that would have to be looked at. There's a lot of due diligence.”
So it would basically be one room… plus a bathroom?
“Um, so this has to be either a Porta Potty, a pump situation where somebody comes and pumps it once a week, once every two weeks, depending on the use,” she said. “[Or] some of these also have a tank in the ground, like a holding tank.”
Translation: There’s no sewer connection for these cottages. And when you live on the waterfront, flushing the toilet can be a big problem.
“So none of these cottages can have a septic system,” Vickers said. “That is just a given. The water table here is too high.”
Other cottages just down the beach have existed like this for decades, but the climate is rapidly changing. The road on Surf Drive is regularly overwashed with sand, the beach is fast-eroding, and the nearby neighborhood often faces flooding. Scientists say the frequency and severity of these threats will only increase. And the same story is playing out across the Cape, Coast, and Islands.
A beachfront home on Nantucket, once valued at more than $2 million, sold eight months ago for $200,000 to a buyer who knew it was on the verge of falling into the sea. In January, after just one season of use, it was condemned and demolished. In Wellfleet, the so-called Blasch House was built on a sandy bluff in 2010, only to be demolished last month after the bluff eroded more than 50 feet in a decade.
Potential buyers are definitely eying the risks, Vickers said. But they’re still calling her.
“I mean, there's still high interest,” she said. “A lot of people are very — in the area — attached to this. They drive by and there is a sentimentality. And it's funny how sticks out of the ground can create that for people. But they really have.”
As of this month, 410 Surf Drive has been on the market for more than 300 days. But, Vickers said it’s only a matter of time.
“I still feel like it will sell,” she said. “It's just about finding the right person, the right fit.”
