Land Bank's New Beach Houses On The Move To Madaket To Become Affordable Housing Units

One of the Land Bank's most expensive, complicated, and collaborative projects in its history got underway Tuesday morning as work crews began moving three structures from its new beachfront property on Jefferson Avenue out to Madaket, where they will become deed-restricted affordable homes.

The parade of houses squeezed around the intersection of Easton Street and North Beach Street, then proceeded up Cliff Road, and out to Madaket with Barrett Enterprises orchestrating the move, assisted by crews from National Grid and Verizon.

The Land Bank purchased the one-acre property at 41 Jefferson Avenue in Nov. 2024 for $26 million, its most expensive property acquisition ever. Over the past year, it has been formulating plans for the structures on the property, and ultimately collaborated with the town's Affordable Housing Trust to find new locations and purposes for several of them.

"It was no small feat," said Land Bank Commission chair Kristina Jelleme said. "There were many, many moving parts behind figuring out how many units could be taken, who was going to take them, where they were going to go, how they were going to be placed with all those moving parts. I think they put together an amazing team with the contractors that we hired, the consultants, and the OPM (owner's project manager). It was fluid, free-flowing, lots of discussions, and the commission was very supportive of the staff running with it and figuring it out. And I think the outcome is unbelievable. We always had this overall view of purchasing the property and moving the houses and having it be a public beach, but when you get down to the logistics of that actually happening, it was no small feat, and I'm just so proud of the team that was put together, and creating year-round affordable housing."

The Land Bank's team for the project included the architectural and engineering firm SMRT, the Rhode Island-based general contractor JJ Cardosi, the global consulting firm Vertex, and Nantucket's Barrett Enterprises. 

The three buildings that were on the move on Tuesday were headed to the town's recently acquired property at 158 Madaket Road, which the Affordable Housing Trust purchased last month for $2 million. 

Kristie Ferrantella, the town's municipal housing director, told the Current that the three structures will be renovated at the property, and then sold as two two-bedroom homes and one four-bedroom home through a lottery process. Two homes will be available to households making up to 150 percent of Nantucket's area median income (AMI), while the third will be available to households earning up to 240 percent of the island's AMI. The lottery winners will have the opportunity to secure a mortgage and buy the homes with a permanent deed restriction, making them affordable to households in those income ranges in perpetuity.

The purchase price for the homes sold at the 150 percent AMI level is expected to be roughly $840,000, with the 240 percent AMI home slightly higher, Ferrantella said. The houses will be sold under the Nantucket Housing Needs Covenant Program, with two covenant lots and one market-rate lot on the 158 Madaket Road property.

"That is the only way our zoning allows for three separate owners on one lot," Ferrantella said.

The two remaining structures at 41 Jefferson Avenue will be moved next week to the Land Bank's property at 159 Hummock Pond Road, and will become employee housing units for Land Bank staff.

The original estimate to move the structures (which included costs associated with deconstruction, transport, reconstruction, site work and utilities, as well as the restoration of 41 Jefferson Ave.) was $6 million to $10 million. Land Bank executive director Rachael Freeman said the final project cost is not yet known.

"Now that we are moving the buildings, we will be finalizing our specifications and putting out an invitation for bids, 'IFB,' for the foundations, site work, utilities, septic systems, and reconstruction of the five buildings on 158 Madaket Rd and 159 Hummock Pond Road," Freeman said. "Once we have received bids and awarded the contract, we will have an idea of total project cost."

One structure, a garage, will remain at the 41 Jefferson Avenue property that the Land Bank will develop into an ADA-accessible public beach, across the street from the Cliffside Beach Club and the Galley restaurant. Jelleme said the Land Bank's goal was to have the beach open to the public by the Fourth of July.

Over the past year and a half, while the Land Bank negotiated with the Affordable Housing Trust and developed its plan to move the structures away from 41 Jefferson Avenue, the property was used as housing for town employees, including members of the Nantucket Police Department.

An Affordable Housing Trust press release in January 2026 described the house-moving project as a “creative housing initiative that will advance shared goals of sustainability, land stewardship, and expanded homeownership opportunities for Nantucket’s middle-income households.”

“By prioritizing the reuse of structures, this project reduces demolition waste, lowers embodied carbon impacts, and preserves the island’s built resources, aligning with both organizations’ commitments to environmental responsibility and thoughtful development,” the press release continues. “The collaboration also reflects a shared belief that innovative, cross-agency partnerships are essential to delivering housing solutions that are both economically and environmentally sustainable.”

The Land Bank continues to receive its revenue from the 2 percent transfer tax on most island real estate transactions that was established in its enabling legislation approved by the state in 1983. The legislation allows it to acquire properties for three purposes: open space conservation, agriculture, and recreation. Over the past 43 years, it has acquired more than 3,400 acres on Nantucket and, along with the island’s other private conservation organizations, protected more than 60 percent of the island from further development.

While the Land Bank’s enabling legislation prevents it from directly funding the purchase of affordable housing on-island, the Land Bank has indicated that it is permitted to purchase employee housing, and has recently found several creative ways to help combat housing insecurity on Nantucket. As it continues to expand its strategy, moving away from a purely open space conservation approach, collaborations like the deal with the Affordable Housing Trust could become more common.