By E.B. Solomont

On a frigid December morning, emergency work crews arrived at Sheep Pond Road in Nantucket at daybreak with an urgent mission: Stop a wood-shingle beach house from tumbling into the ocean.

The land around the meandering road on the Massachusetts island's south shore has ceded about 10 feet a year to the water for decades, claiming roughly half a dozen homes since the early 2000s. Now, erosion threatened to take another.

Contractor Rob Andersen said his crew worked quickly, trying to beat a storm that was forecast to roll in that evening, bringing 35 to 60 mile an hour wind gusts. By nightfall, workers excavated below the house -- precariously perched on a bluff besieged by crashing waves -- and slid steel beams underneath the 1,300-square-foot, three-bedroom structure. Later, they jacked it up and rolled it back about 200 feet from the water's edge.

Over the past few years, homeowners on Sheep Pond Road have faced a series of increasingly critical decisions over how to protect their idyllic beach enclave from erosion. Since 2020, three houses on Sheep Pond have been condemned and demolished as the water has crept closer. Others have been moved back out of harm's way or sold at fire-sale prices.

The experience on Sheep Pond Road is a microcosm of Nantucket and other coastal communities where homeowners and local governments are wrestling with the emotional and financial implications of climate change. The progression of erosion can be unpredictable. The island has weathered a series of bad storms over the past few years that have taken out bigger chunks of the beach, lending urgency to the issue of what can be done -- and who should pay for it.

"What's happening on Sheep Pond is no different than what's been happening forever -- it's just that the houses are running out of room now," said Gary Winn of Maury People Sotheby's International Realty, who has been selling real estate on Nantucket for more than 40 years.

Nantucket, in recent years, has tried to take a more proactive approach. Nearly 2,400 buildings on the island are at risk of flood and erosion-related damage by 2070, which could amount to $3.4 billion in damages, according to Nantucket's Coastal Resilience Plan. Adopted in 2021, the plan outlines nearly $1 billion worth of projects to safeguard public infrastructure over the next few decades. Taxpayer funds, state funding and grants will help cover the costs.

Some Sheep Pond homeowners want more.

Real-estate developer James Caulfield, who bought a pair of houses on Sheep Pond for $2.125 million in 2020, said he grew up going to the Jersey Shore, where there are jetties and sand-replenishment projects. He said he doesn't understand why the same can't be done in Nantucket, or why the town can't work out a land swap with residents to give them more options.

"At some point, if they're OK letting it go, that whole area is going to be done," he said.

Sheep Pond Road is a narrow, sand-and-gravel road that zigzags along Nantucket's south shore, a stone's throw from the main island's western tip.

For years, the area near Madaket Beach was known as a rustic and remote spot, popular with summertime residents drawn to its lively surf and magical sunsets. Unlike areas that are dotted with waterfront mansions, Sheep Pond Road has about a dozen more modest beach homes along a roughly mile-long stretch.

Although erosion has long been an issue -- in 2010, summer residents Gene and Roslyn Ratner's house collapsed into the ocean -- real-estate values shot up during Covid. Homes that previously sold for a few hundred thousand dollars began trading for several million.

The spike took some real-estate agents by surprise. "It was like, 'Whoa, wait, erosion is a factor here,'" said Amber Cantella of Great Point Properties.

To a handful of buyers, however, owning a vacation home in the area was a risk worth taking.

"We love the island," said James Caulfield. He and his wife, Jessica Caulfield, had been visiting Nantucket for years with their children before buying a place on Sheep Pond Road. Their property has two houses, one of which they rent out for $30,000 to $40,000 a week during the summer.

They hired a surveyor to assess the property before they bought it and were comfortable knowing the two homes are set back about 300 to 400 feet from the water. "I know at some point I'm going to have to pick up one of the houses and move it back," he said. "We went into this investment knowing it may not be there forever."

The south shore of Nantucket has some of the highest erosion rates in the state, said Sarah Oktay, former executive director of the University of Massachusetts-Boston Nantucket Field Station, a marine lab and research facility. Fifty years ago, she said, the land in front of Sheep Pond Road extended out another half-mile or so.

Veteran real-estate agents said anyone buying a beach house has to go in with their eyes open.

"I don't give my opinion on erosion. I don't. Because sand comes and goes," said real-estate agent John Arena of William Raveis Nantucket, who has lived and worked in Nantucket for more than 15 years. He said erosion tends to be episodic -- meaning there can be years where not an inch erodes and then one storm can take off 40 feet from the beach. "People have got to make that assessment on their own," he said.

Telecommunications executive James Maloney, 57, said he and his wife, Amy Cutler, 56, bought a four-bedroom house on Sheep Pond Road for $2.3 million in 2022. Maloney said they were reassured by the distance between the house and ocean, and the fact that there was ample room to move back if needed. Maloney said he has insurance on the property, though it doesn't cover erosion. Instead of stressing about the inevitable, however, the couple consciously decided to enjoy what they have.

"You're sitting there looking at the open ocean," said Maloney, whose kids surf in front of their house. "I go sit on the beach, and if I see someone on the beach in a day, it's a surprise."

Located about 30 miles south of Cape Cod, Nantucket has grappled with erosion for decades.

In the 1990s, residents of Siasconset, on the eastern end of Nantucket, formed a nonprofit, funded by locals, that installed sand-filled geotubes to absorb the force of waves along Sankaty Bluff and Baxter Road. But the project, which cost more than $15 million, sparked controversy over the private group's use of the public beach, and whether the barriers caused more damage to nearby unprotected areas.

In recent years, the town moved away from just reacting to coastal risk and adopted a proactive approach with its Coastal Resilience Plan. It currently allocates $1 million a year to such planning, said Nantucket's town manager, C. Elizabeth Gibson.

She and other local officials, however, say there is also a level of personal responsibility among homeowners. "This is private property and, unfortunately, there's nature at work here," she said. "There's no magic solution to this."

In 2003, five homeowners on Sheep Pond Road sued the town and county for negligence after officials failed to maintain a 100-foot stretch of the public road before it collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean, blocking access to their homes. Five years later, a jury sided with homeowners and ordered the town to rebuild the road.

A few years ago, portions of the new road began to crumble, too. This time, the town plans to relocate the road, which will cut through land that was previously held in conservation.

Efforts to prevent erosion are hotly debated and tightly controlled.

Massachusetts law currently prohibits permanent structures like sea walls, riprap and breakwaters, said Arthur Gasbarro, a civil engineer and land surveyor. He has installed "soft" erosion-control designs -- like coconut fiber log arrays with plantings -- in places like Nantucket Harbor.

But, in recent years, Nantucket's Conservation Commission has been conservative about what projects it permits, in part to ensure properties aren't protected at the expense of others. That's left Sheep Pond residents in a bind, said Glenn Wood, an attorney who represented the residents in the 2003 lawsuit. "Without any really good option, the only option is retreat," he said.

Even if Sheep Pond residents manage to pool their resources and get permission to install erosion control, it is unlikely they could prevent the inevitable, said Gasbarro. Plus, the town is also dealing with erosion near the island's ferry terminal, an airport runway and a wastewater treatment plant. "I don't want to come across as glib or unempathetic to the loss of someone's longtime family home," he said, but "our society can't function without a wastewater treatment plant."

Over the past decade, at least seven houses on Sheep Pond Road have been demolished.

After a series of storms, a summer home owned by New Yorkers George and Marie Frazza was condemned and demolished in October 2023. Then in February 2024, a house on Sheep Pond that was once listed for $2.2 million sold for $600,000.

Four months later, longtime owners Jane Carlin and Benjamin Gifford were trying to donate their house, which had been assessed at $1.9 million. Then their neighbor, Don Vaccaro, a co-founder of TicketNetwork, offered to buy it for $200,000. The offer was like a "miracle dropped from the sky," Carlin told the Nantucket Current in July. Vaccaro told the magazine that the house may not last six months, but he planned to plant sea grass and take other steps to extend its life.

By January, the house was condemned and had to be demolished.

A Boston real-estate developer who purchased a pair of houses on Sheep Pond for $3.9 million in 2022 is also grappling with fallout from his investment. After developer Brett Fodiman defaulted on a $2.925 million mortgage on the property, the homes were set to be sold at auction in December. The day before the auction, one of the houses was condemned. That's when Rob Andersen and his crew were called to move it. The company Fodiman used to buy the property has since filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Given the precarious state of the area, it has been hard for Sheep Pond owners to sell.

James Maloney listed his home for $3.5 million in 2023, a couple of months after his neighbors, the Frazzas, had to tear down their home. He said erosion had nothing to do with the decision; he thinks his sliver of beach is actually growing. Rather, he and his wife purchased a home in Marblehead, another coastal town in Massachusetts, and they decided to give up Nantucket. They have since dropped the asking price to $2.395 million.

Husband-and-wife fashion designers Andrew and Marilyn Fezza first listed their four-bedroom house for $4.75 million in 2021, having paid $418,000 for it in 1999, records show. It is now asking $2.995 million. Next door, entertainment executive Michael Burns listed a two-bedroom beach cottage in the summer of 2024 for $850,000. Burns, vice chairman of film studio Lionsgate, also owns a larger home on the adjacent lot. The smaller property was in contract twice before Burns took it off the market in January.

"Of course everyone wants to know how long the house will be there, and it's an impossible question to answer," said listing agent Penny Dey of Atlantic East Nantucket Real Estate. Dey said she disclosed the area's erosion issues in marketing materials to make sure buyers were aware of the hazards. "It's a question of tolerance, isn't it?"

Some buyers still have it: In September, John Arena represented a Texas couple who paid $1.375 million for a roughly 3,000-square-foot house with six bedrooms. The prior owner bought it for $2 million in 2002. "These people looked and said, 'With 218 feet, we have 20 years. In the meantime, we can enjoy it,'" he said.

Write to E.B. Solomont at eb.solomont@wsj.com

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