WELLFLEET — The Blasch house is no longer Mark and Barbara Blasch’s problem.
Ownership of the 5,817-square-foot house perched atop “the Gut,” a rapidly eroding strip of steep coastal bank overlooking Cape Cod Bay and Wellfleet Harbor, was officially transferred on Nov. 24 for $5.5 million, the asking price, to attorney John G. Bonomi Jr.
Bonomi, 61, lives in New York City where he is a partner and associate general counsel at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, the gigantic international accounting and consulting firm. From 1986 to 1991, Bonomi worked as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office. He did not respond to the Independent’s request for comment regarding his plans for the house.
Robert Kinlin of Robert Paul Properties, the listing agent for the sale, also did not respond to a message seeking comment. In June, he said that there was much interest in the property and that he had shown it to six potential buyers in the first week after it was listed. He also said that he would make “no representations or warranties” regarding the expected lifespan of the structure.
A year ago, the Independent reported that only 12 to 14 feet remained between the house’s foundation and the edge of the eroding escarpment. In 2019, the Coastal Engineering Co. told the Wellfleet Conservation Commission that the bank was eroding at a rate of six to seven feet per year. The Blasches built the house in 2010.
For the last two years, the Blasches have sought permission from the town to build a 240-foot sea wall to protect the house. The conservation commission denied the request, citing the need to maintain the natural movement of sand on that section of coastline. The Blasches challenged the decision in Barnstable Superior Court. There are 70 docket entries in the Blasches’ still-open lawsuit spanning more than two years, but virtually no progress has been made.
In September 2020, Blasch family attorney James Halleck Hoeland asked that the conservation commission be held in contempt of court for failing to conduct a court-ordered public hearing about the case. Wellfleet’s lawyer pointed out that the public hearing did take place, and called Hoeland’s contempt request “wholly insubstantial, frivolous, and not advanced in good faith.”
The last entry on the court docket is from March 18, when Clerk of Courts Scott Nickerson endorsed a motion to dismiss Hoeland’s complaint. Three months later, the Blasches listed the property for sale.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article, published in print on Dec. 2, erroneously identified Scott Nickerson as a judge; he is the clerk of courts in Barnstable Superior Court.
