Beach erosion forces Barry Sternlicht to emergency demo Nantucket home

Barry Sternlicht has been in a losing battle with Mother Nature for years, and now he is waving the white flag.

The billionaire founder and chairman of Starwood Capital, is moving forward with an emergency demolition of his Nantucket home following severe beach erosion, the Nantucket Current reported. The beachfront house sits between the Atlantic Ocean and Hummock Pond and has struggled with coastal erosion for years, according to the outlet.

The island estate wasn’t the priciest investment for Sternlicht, who has a net worth of $3.8 billion, according to Forbes. He bought two adjacent houses at 287 and 289 Hummock Pond Road for a combined $1.9 million in 2010 and 2019, the Current reported. He had plans to move the house at 289 to the 287 lot, which was further from the eroding bluff, but Hurricanes Paulette and Teddy wiped out more than 60 feet of land from his properties in 2020, Vanity Fair reported. The house at 289 has been sitting on steel girders known as “cribbing” ever since. Additional erosion left him with nowhere to move the home.

“There were really no options because all the land was eroded,” Sternlicht’s architect Matt MacEachern told the Nantucket Historic District Commission. “We have talked to a number of different companies to try [to] move the structure and they told us it’s just not possible because of the location, so we’re before you today to ask for an emergency demolition.”

Sternlicht’s decision to demolish and retreat is the reality facing many homeowners and communities. Coastal erosion is on the rise globally as a result of climate change. Stronger, more frequent storms and rising sea levels means more beaches and cliffs are washing away, and taking prime real estate with them. Last month, severe beach erosion in Jupiter Inlet Colony, Florida, wiped out huge chunks of oceanfront properties.

 Kid Rock and Conair heiress Babe Rizzuto were among the homeowners affected. Beach erosion has also hit Dana Point, California and Fire Island, New York in recent years. 

Little can be done about coastal erosion at this point, experts say. Beach nourishment programs, which involve restocking sand on a regular basis, are costly, temporary fixes, as are seawalls. A growing body of experts are advocating for managed retreat –– the coordinated movement of communities away from deteriorating coastlines.

Dr. Gary Griggs, an authority on coastal erosion at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told The Real Deal, “There’s absolutely nothing we can do in the long run to hold back the Atlantic Ocean.”

–– Kate Hinsche