WELLFLEET — The conservation commission had been expecting to see plans on Jan. 15 for demolition of the large house now close to the edge of a quickly eroding bluff above Cape Cod Bay.

Instead, New York attorney Thomas Moore, the lawyer representing John G. Bonomi, the owner of the troubled property at 1440 Chequessett Neck Road where the Great Island trail begins, tossed the fate of the 5,153-square-foot house — and any associated costs — to the town. His claim was that the house’s current precarious situation could have been prevented if the commission had allowed construction of a 241-foot stone revetment.

The property’s previous owners, Mark and Barbara Blasch, who had the controversial house built in 2010, originally sought permission to build a revetment in 2018. That request was denied based on wetlands protection laws in place since 1978 regulating coastal erosion structures.

The denial was upheld on appeal in Barnstable Superior Court. The Blasches took the case to state appeals court in November 2023, where it is still pending.

A Dec. 19 letter from attorney Moore to Wellfleet Conservation Agent Lecia McKenna laid out the current owner’s position: “The bottom line is that there will be no additional filings, no NOI [Notice of Intent], no applications for permits or plans for a controlled demolition…. The town is on notice to take whatever steps it deems prudent to prevent the collapse of the embankment and the other consequences of further erosion.”

The Owner’s Responsibility

Moore’s December letter stated that a company called CQN Salvage LLC had recently taken title to 1440 Chequessett Neck Road and that he represented both the salvage company and Bonomi, who purchased the property in 2021 for $5.5 million.

The Independent has found no record of that transfer of title at the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds. CQN Salvage LLC was incorporated with the New York State’s Div. of Corporations on Oct. 29, 2024.

At the conservation commission’s Jan. 15 meeting, McKenna questioned Moore’s assertion that the house had been conveyed to CQN Salvage. McKenna said the commission will continue to consider Bonomi the owner. “It will be whatever the Registry says,” she said.

“So, you plan to not do anything and allow it to fall into the water,” McKenna said to Moore. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“I plan to ask you to not let it fall in the water,” Moore said. Neither CQN nor Bonomi was going to spend $1 million to tear the house down, the lawyer said.

McKenna said it is the responsibility of the owner to maintain the property and make sure it is not a public safety hazard.

“You’re planning not to do anything but just let it ride,” McKenna said to Moore. The attorney responded, “My understanding is the town has certain powers it could exercise, and it’s up to the town to decide whether to exercise them.”

In his letter, Moore argued that the owner should not be held responsible for protecting the surrounding environment from the house’s imminent collapse.

The first reason, he argued, was the expense. Since Bonomi bought the property in 2021, he had spent nearly $1 million trying to protect the embankment upon which the house was perched, wrote Moore. The figure included several hundred thousand dollars spent last fall to remove a turret containing the master bedroom and an expansive deck with a hot tub that had become unstable.

Bonomi tried to sell the property in 2023 “for millions less than he had paid for it,” wrote the attorney. It was the absence of the revetment, he wrote, that prevented the sale.

Meanwhile, the cost of demolishing the house, which would require erosion measures, has been estimated at more than $1 million, Moore said in his letter and again at the commission meeting, adding that neither Bonomi nor CQN plans to bear that cost. Instead, he wrote, CQN would “harvest as many of the items and materials in the house as possible before the dune is further endangered, and the house becomes unsafe.”

The attorney also wrote that Bonomi suffers from bipolar disorder and had bought the house “while experiencing a manic episode.” That problem, Moore wrote, is another reason Bonomi cannot take responsibility for the house: “As the mounting difficulties and costs placed increasing stress on John and his mental health, the family concluded it was best for him to walk away from this mess.”

An Enforcement Order

The conservation commission voted on Jan. 15 to issue an enforcement order that requires the property owner to meet the special conditions that were put into effect in September. Those required that erosion monitoring reports be submitted every two weeks and also one day following any weather such as heavy rainfall or sustained winds of 40 mph or more. Those reports were never submitted.

The commission also voted to extend the owner’s deadline for submitting a notice of intent regarding installing fiber rolls at the base of the bluff. The board originally required the notice on that erosion remedy by Dec. 20, 2024; that deadline was extended to June 1.

In a phone interview after the Jan. 15 meeting, conservation commissioner John Cumbler said that if the house falls into the bay, the results could be catastrophic.

“The currents are going to pull that material and that waste around Jeremy Point and into the harbor,” Cumbler said. “If that happens, there’s a high possibility it can contaminate the oyster beds, and that would threaten Wellfleet’s oyster industry.” If that were to happen, he added, “I would think that each shellfisherman in town would have a tort against the owner of the house.”

Even if the stone revetment had been allowed, Cumbler said, it would likely not have fully addressed the erosion that is undermining the house. “Half the erosion is from wind that’s eating away at the sand on the top,” he said. “I don’t understand what the homeowner’s strategy is. I’m guessing they think the town will just belly up and remove the house for them.”

Town Administrator Tom Guerino told the Independent that he, the select board, and the conservation department would meet with town counsel to discuss options.

Moore wrote in his letter that Bonomi was continuing the Blasches’ 2023 appeal of the Superior Court’s decision. But the Superior Court lists only James Hoeland, the attorney for the Blasch family, as the plaintiff.

One Storm or Dozens?

Bryan McCormack, a coastal processes and hazards specialist with Barnstable County, produced a report on erosion at the house last July for the conservation commission. In a Jan. 20 email to the Independent, McCormack wrote that the future of the house on the bluff is “highly dependent on the direction of wind and waves from storms.”

Over the last decade, he said, erosion rates in the area of the property have exceeded both long- and short-term projections made by the state Office of Coastal Zone Management.

“The current house is just a few feet from the top of the coastal bank in some locations,” McCormack said. “Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if the house will last one storm or dozens, because Mother Nature is so unpredictable.”

WELLFLEET — The conservation commission had been expecting to see plans on Jan. 15 for demolition of the large house now close to the edge of a quickly eroding bluff above Cape Cod Bay.

Instead, New York attorney Thomas Moore, the lawyer representing John G. Bonomi, the owner of the troubled property at 1440 Chequessett Neck Road where the Great Island trail begins, tossed the fate of the 5,153-square-foot house — and any associated costs — to the town. His claim was that the house’s current precarious situation could have been prevented if the commission had allowed construction of a 241-foot stone revetment.

The property’s previous owners, Mark and Barbara Blasch, who had the controversial house built in 2010, originally sought permission to build a revetment in 2018. That request was denied based on wetlands protection laws in place since 1978 regulating coastal erosion structures.

The denial was upheld on appeal in Barnstable Superior Court. The Blasches took the case to state appeals court in November 2023, where it is still pending.

A Dec. 19 letter from attorney Moore to Wellfleet Conservation Agent Lecia McKenna laid out the current owner’s position: “The bottom line is that there will be no additional filings, no NOI [Notice of Intent], no applications for permits or plans for a controlled demolition…. The town is on notice to take whatever steps it deems prudent to prevent the collapse of the embankment and the other consequences of further erosion.”

The Owner’s Responsibility

Moore’s December letter stated that a company called CQN Salvage LLC had recently taken title to 1440 Chequessett Neck Road and that he represented both the salvage company and Bonomi, who purchased the property in 2021 for $5.5 million.

The Independent has found no record of that transfer of title at the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds. CQN Salvage LLC was incorporated with the New York State’s Div. of Corporations on Oct. 29, 2024.

At the conservation commission’s Jan. 15 meeting, McKenna questioned Moore’s assertion that the house had been conveyed to CQN Salvage. McKenna said the commission will continue to consider Bonomi the owner. “It will be whatever the Registry says,” she said.

“So, you plan to not do anything and allow it to fall into the water,” McKenna said to Moore. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“I plan to ask you to not let it fall in the water,” Moore said. Neither CQN nor Bonomi was going to spend $1 million to tear the house down, the lawyer said.

McKenna said it is the responsibility of the owner to maintain the property and make sure it is not a public safety hazard.

“You’re planning not to do anything but just let it ride,” McKenna said to Moore. The attorney responded, “My understanding is the town has certain powers it could exercise, and it’s up to the town to decide whether to exercise them.”

In his letter, Moore argued that the owner should not be held responsible for protecting the surrounding environment from the house’s imminent collapse.

The first reason, he argued, was the expense. Since Bonomi bought the property in 2021, he had spent nearly $1 million trying to protect the embankment upon which the house was perched, wrote Moore. The figure included several hundred thousand dollars spent last fall to remove a turret containing the master bedroom and an expansive deck with a hot tub that had become unstable.

Bonomi tried to sell the property in 2023 “for millions less than he had paid for it,” wrote the attorney. It was the absence of the revetment, he wrote, that prevented the sale.

Meanwhile, the cost of demolishing the house, which would require erosion measures, has been estimated at more than $1 million, Moore said in his letter and again at the commission meeting, adding that neither Bonomi nor CQN plans to bear that cost. Instead, he wrote, CQN would “harvest as many of the items and materials in the house as possible before the dune is further endangered, and the house becomes unsafe.”

The attorney also wrote that Bonomi suffers from bipolar disorder and had bought the house “while experiencing a manic episode.” That problem, Moore wrote, is another reason Bonomi cannot take responsibility for the house: “As the mounting difficulties and costs placed increasing stress on John and his mental health, the family concluded it was best for him to walk away from this mess.”

An Enforcement Order

The conservation commission voted on Jan. 15 to issue an enforcement order that requires the property owner to meet the special conditions that were put into effect in September. Those required that erosion monitoring reports be submitted every two weeks and also one day following any weather such as heavy rainfall or sustained winds of 40 mph or more. Those reports were never submitted.

The commission also voted to extend the owner’s deadline for submitting a notice of intent regarding installing fiber rolls at the base of the bluff. The board originally required the notice on that erosion remedy by Dec. 20, 2024; that deadline was extended to June 1.

In a phone interview after the Jan. 15 meeting, conservation commissioner John Cumbler said that if the house falls into the bay, the results could be catastrophic.

“The currents are going to pull that material and that waste around Jeremy Point and into the harbor,” Cumbler said. “If that happens, there’s a high possibility it can contaminate the oyster beds, and that would threaten Wellfleet’s oyster industry.” If that were to happen, he added, “I would think that each shellfisherman in town would have a tort against the owner of the house.”

Even if the stone revetment had been allowed, Cumbler said, it would likely not have fully addressed the erosion that is undermining the house. “Half the erosion is from wind that’s eating away at the sand on the top,” he said. “I don’t understand what the homeowner’s strategy is. I’m guessing they think the town will just belly up and remove the house for them.”

Town Administrator Tom Guerino told the Independent that he, the select board, and the conservation department would meet with town counsel to discuss options.

Moore wrote in his letter that Bonomi was continuing the Blasches’ 2023 appeal of the Superior Court’s decision. But the Superior Court lists only James Hoeland, the attorney for the Blasch family, as the plaintiff.

One Storm or Dozens?

Bryan McCormack, a coastal processes and hazards specialist with Barnstable County, produced a report on erosion at the house last July for the conservation commission. In a Jan. 20 email to the Independent, McCormack wrote that the future of the house on the bluff is “highly dependent on the direction of wind and waves from storms.”

Over the last decade, he said, erosion rates in the area of the property have exceeded both long- and short-term projections made by the state Office of Coastal Zone Management.

“The current house is just a few feet from the top of the coastal bank in some locations,” McCormack said. “Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if the house will last one storm or dozens, because Mother Nature is so unpredictable.”