$200,000 Nantucket Beach House Demolished Due To Erosion But "It Was Worth It In The End"

Just six months after it was sold for only $200,000 due erosion concerns, the house at 28 Sheep Pond Road was demolished Tuesday after being condemned by the town last month.

The property lost another 10 to 20 feet of the coastal bank since the sale last year and its new owner, Don Vaccaro, paid to have the structure demolished after renting it for a few months.

Vaccaro, a businessman and philanthropist who co-founded Ticketnetwork Inc., has owned the adjacent property at 26 Sheep Pond Road since 2014.

When he bought the erosion-threatened lot next door in late June 2024, Vaccaro told the Current he was under no illusions about the time he may have with his new $200,000 waterfront property. And he made a very accurate prediction at the time:

“Basically, the house may not last more than six months,” Vaccaro said last year. “Inevitably the ocean will win. The house is only temporary, everything in life is temporary.”

On Tuesday, Vaccaro shared the following with the Current:

“Unfortunately the town wanted the house down for safety reasons, and we complied with the town request even though the house was still structurally sound.”

Vaccaro said his losses from the gambit were in excess of $400,000.

“However I was able to use it one week with my family and kids in both houses, which was a priceless experience, so it was worth it in the end,” he added.

The prior owners - Ben Gifford and Jane Carlin - had investigated how they could move and donate the home to a local affordable housing non-profit, but had no takers given the challenges of moving a home from that area of the island.

Tuesday’s demolition by Holdgate Partners marked the latest in a string of difficult decisions by property owners along Sheep Pond Road driven by erosion along Nantucket’s southwest shoreline. The meandering dirt road - at least what is left of it - has been an erosion hot spot for decades, leading to a number of remarkable real estate deals, demolitions, and homes lost to the waves.

In October 2023, the house at 21 Sheep Pond Road was demolished after a storm undercut the southeast corner of the home, causing a deck to collapse and a condemnation order by the town.

In March 2024, the home at 4 and 6 Sheep Pond Road was sold for just $600,000 after a combination of severe erosion and a motivated seller led to the original asking price of $2.2 million being slashed down to six figures.

A house at 16 Sheep Pond Road that was set to be sold at a foreclosure auction in December 2024 was condemned by the town due to severe erosion. The foreclosure auction was later postponed and the house was moved back from the edge of the bluff.

Fourteen years ago, the late Gene Ratner lost his long battle with erosion when his home at 19 Sheep Pond Road collapsed into the ocean. Today, the entirety of Ratner’s property is now submerged.

And just a few months earlier in 2010, the property owners of 3 Sheep Pond Road lost their home after it toppled over the coastal bank and into the surf.