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Blasch house

    COASTAL BANK

    House on the Edge Sells for $5.5M

    The controversial Blasch house fetches asking price

    By

    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.

    The Blasch house was about 12 to 14 feet from the edge of the coastal bank a year ago. The bank is eroding at about six feet per year. (Photo Susan Spear)

    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.

     

    DUE DILIGENCE

    Blasches List Their Endangered House for $5.5 Million

    The building that led to house-size limits in Wellfleet’s National Seashore

    By

    WELLFLEET — The controversial Blasch house at 1440 Chequessett Neck Road is on the market. Mark and Barbara Blasch, who built it in 2010, are asking $5.5 million for the 5,817-square-foot house at “the Gut” in the Cape Cod National Seashore.

    The house’s foundation now sits less than 14 feet from the edge of an eroding coastal bank overlooking Cape Cod Bay. The escarpment is currently eroding at a rate of 6 to 7 feet per year.

    The listing agent is Robert Kinlin, co-owner of Robert Paul Properties, a Boston-based agency that was acquired in the last year by the Commonwealth Realty Group.

    On the Robert Paul website, the Blasch house is described as possessing “intelligent living spaces” and “extraordinary design.” In 2019, the house was 25 feet from the edge. The distance is now about half that. The Blasches were warned about the likelihood of catastrophic erosion at the site when they originally sought construction permits, which were vigorously opposed by the National Park Service.

    After the house was built, Wellfleet amended its zoning bylaw to limit the size of houses in the National Seashore Park District.

    The 5,817-square-foot Blasch house is for sale. Its foundation sits 14 feet from the edge of the coastal bank, which is eroding at about 6 to 7 feet per year. (Photo Susan Spear)

    The online listing for the Blasch house also boasts of its “quality craftsmanship,” including the “strategically placed helical piles” upon which the rear of the house rests. These are essentially industrial-size bundles of sticks planted deep in the sand to support the concrete foundation and wood frame of the house. According to a report submitted by structural engineers to the Wellfleet Conservation Commission, if one of those piles were to fail because of erosion, it could potentially create a domino effect, causing the whole house to collapse.

    The Blasches are seeking permission to build a 271-foot rock revetment to protect the house from collapse. Their request was denied by the conservation commission, and that denial is now being challenged in court by the owners of the house.

    In the meantime, the Blasches have dumped thousands of yards of “sacrificial sand” on the bank annually since 2013 to counter the effects of erosion.

    According to the online listing, the house does have “maple herringbone flooring” in the bedroom, “birch shiplap walls and ceilings,” a “three-floor elevator,” and one “palatial bathroom.”

    A source who spoke with Robert Kinlin about the Blasch house told the Independent this week that the broker would make “no representations or warranties” regarding the eroding coastal bank or the expected lifespan of the structure. Kinlin said he was advising prospective buyers to do “due diligence” regarding the erosion by talking to Seth Wilkinson, the CEO of Wilkinson Environmental in Orleans.

    Wilkinson is one of the companies that the Blasches have hired to dump sand and install biodegradable cylindrical envelopes full of sand to shore up the coastline at their property.

    Kinlin and Wilkinson did not respond to messages seeking comment before this week’s deadline.

    In an interview, Kathleen Nagle, a Wellfleet-based real estate agent, said that an agent’s “first fiduciary duty is honesty, and part of that honesty is disclosure.” Disclosure, in this case, means telling buyers about any imminent problems associated with the house, she said. “It’s pretty simple. We have a duty to be upfront.”

    According to the Independent’s source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Kinlin said there was a lot of interest from possible buyers, and that he had shown the property to six people since the house went on the market last week. At only seven figures, it is on the cheaper end of the “luxury homes” that Robert Paul Properties represents. The company’s website has a video tour of the house with a classical music soundtrack. The video includes drone shots showing the house’s deck, with a hot tub, which appears to be less than a foot away from the edge of the bank.

    “Most people are not happy about how this whole situation has gone over there for so many years now,” said Nagle. “The Blasches hired a realtor who is not from the town of Wellfleet, which I thought was interesting,” she added. “I’m happy I wasn’t called to be a listing agent on it.”

    ENVIRONMENT

    Giant Seawall Plan Is Turned Down Again

    Commission stands firm in face of Blasch lawsuit

    By

    WELLFLEET — The conservation commission has again denied permission for the construction of a 241-foot rock revetment in front of the Blasch house on Chequessett Neck Road.

    The 5,817-square-foot house, built in 2010, is now 12 to 14 feet from the edge of an eroding coastal bank just north of “the Gut,” the narrow strip of sand and marsh separating Wellfleet Harbor from Cape Cod Bay. The latest action came on Feb. 17 at a court-ordered remand hearing.

    As reported by the Independent on Dec. 24, in the last two years the coastal bank has lost six to seven feet per year and the house is at grave risk of collapsing. Its owners appealed the commission’s December 2018 rejection of the seawall plan in Barnstable Superior Court, where it remained in litigation until last week.

    mapThe Feb. 17 vote was 5-0. The commission cited three reasons for the denial: first, that the owners did not effectively explore alternatives to the seawall; second, that the commission “did not have the chance to thoroughly look at the evidence around the consequences” of constructing the seawall; and third, that feasible alternative solutions do exist, including demolishing the house and rebuilding farther from the edge of the bank.

    The seawall proposal has been vigorously opposed by officials of the Cape Cod National Seashore, in which the house is located.

    In comments delivered at the hearing, Seashore Supt. Brian Carlstrom again urged the commission to deny the permit and called the design of the house itself “flawed and deficient.”

    “We believe the applicant’s need for a solution to the natural coastal bank erosion is directly attributable to the architectural engineering of the house piling foundation, which design is uniquely high-risk and apparently inadvisable in this type of vulnerable coastal bank location,” Carlstrom said. “We continue to believe that solutions such as the routine replacement of the coir envelopes or retreat to a new house location should be considered, as is widely practiced on Cape Cod, particularly given this is such an important and prominent location within the national park area.”

    Commissioner John Portnoy, who was traveling and unable to attend the hearing, submitted a written comment.

    “I think it’s highly relevant that the proposed hard coastal structure would be the only impediment to natural coastal processes from Jeremy Point to Pamet Harbor — a distance of eight miles,” Portnoy wrote. “Undisturbed shorelines of this extent, second only to the 40-mile backshore of the Cape, are extremely rare throughout the nation and even the world. Further, the Gut, Griffin Island, and Great Island are within a national park, lands held in trust by the U.S. government for the enjoyment of all citizens. The proposed hard structure will permanently compromise public values and public access associated with National Seashore resources appreciated by thousands of people every year.”

    On Dec. 2, the urgency of the erosion prompted the owners to request emergency certification from the commission for a “soft solution,” involving installation of three biodegradable coir (coconut fiber) cylindrical envelopes filled with sand — essentially, giant sandbags.

    On Feb. 17, before the remand hearing, the commission approved an order of conditions for the “soft solution,” including regular monitoring of the envelopes. Despite losing some sand in an early February nor’easter, the sand-filled envelopes, which typically last from two and a half to three years, are doing their job and “continue to be in good shape,” according to Seth Wilkinson, who installed them.

    In the original application submitted by the trust that owns the Blasch house in September 2018, the alternatives analysis did not include the sand-filled envelopes, noted Commissioner Michael Fisher. Therefore, the application was incomplete, and the sand-filled envelopes should be considered a feasible alternative, he said.

    Moving the house is the only logical solution to the problem, said Commissioner John Cumbler.

    Commissioner Barbara Brennessel agreed.

    “Long-term, this house should probably be moved,” she said, “if the owners want to enjoy the property.” But in the short term, said Brennessel, the current alternative structure in place — the sand-filled envelopes — should continue to be monitored.

    Commission Chair Deborah Freeman agreed that “it is functioning and protecting the bank.” Freeman said, “This indicates that there is another solution — or at least one that has to be looked at and tried.”

    The virtual hearing was attended by nearly 30 people, many of whom were adamantly opposed to the seawall.

    Referring to the findings of technical reports prepared for the National Park Service, Carlstrom said, “We have previously raised eight points of concern, which remain unaddressed by this proposal.” Among those concerns, he said, was the applicant’s failure to address “end scour and other impacts on the Gut and Great Island.”

    “End scour” refers to the removal of underwater material by waves and currents, especially at the base or toe of a shore structure, according to the Mass. Barrier Beach Task Force.

    According to the findings of the commission in 2018, installing the seawall “is likely to lead to significant erosion on abutting properties — the land to the south is a sand dune which protects Wellfleet harbor,” said conservation agent Hillary Greenberg-Lemos. The evidence provided by the Park Service — in the form of technical reports — supports those findings, she said.

    The decision to deny the notice of intent for a seawall will be drafted, reviewed at the next conservation commission meeting on March 3, and then filed, said Town Counsel Amy Kwessel.

    TIPPING POINT

    Cliffhanger at the Blasch House

    Conservation Commission OKs sandbagging to prevent imminent slide

    By

    The Wellfleet Conservation Commission approved the use of biodegradable sandbags made from woven coconut fiber to shore up the coastal bank on which the Blasch house was built. (Photo courtesy Susan Spear)

    WELLFLEET — The long-running drama of the Blasch house continues, as the structure is now just 12 to 14 feet from the edge of the coastal bank high above Cape Cod Bay. Its owners received emergency certification on Dec. 2 to use sandbags to slow erosion of the bank while they wait for the Barnstable Superior Court — or Mother Nature — to act.

    Mark and Barbara Blasch have been trying for over a year to get permission to erect a 240-foot stone seawall to keep their 5,817-square-foot, $4.5 million house at 1440 Chequessett Neck Road from falling over the edge. On Dec. 5, 2019, the Wellfleet Conservation Commission denied their application to build the seawall. The couple is appealing that decision in Barnstable Superior Court. The house, on a thin strip of land, known as “the Gut,” between the bay and the Herring River, was built only 10 years ago.

    Nathan Jones, project engineer at Coastal Engineering Company, told the commission on Dec. 2 that the cliff has lost about six to seven feet a year over the last two years, so the deck of the Blasch house is now within a foot of the escarpment. The deck, which includes a hot tub, is just one storm away from hanging over the cliff, he said.

    That is why the Blasches, through their attorney, Ben Zehnder, asked the commission for emergency certification to add three “cylindrical biodegradable envelopes” made from woven coconut fiber to the base of the coastal bank. The envelopes would be three feet high and four feet wide, and stacked on top of each other, said Seth Wilkinson, owner of Wilkinson Ecological Design in Orleans.

    The commission voted 6-0-1, with Barbara Brennessel abstaining, to grant permission for the sand envelopes. But they denied the use of wood timbers as support. In addition, the Blasches have been granted permission to add “sacrificial sand” regularly to the cliff. Last year they dumped 6,000 cubic yards of sand there, said Jones. It’s all gone.

    Commission members noted several inconsistencies in Zehnder’s argument for the emergency erosion measure. John Cumbler said the erosion issue was well known when the house was constructed in 2010, so the use of special support beams, called helical pilings, which are especially threatened by shifting sand, was not a good design choice.

    Commissioner John Portnoy said the old septic system from the Blasch property fell onto the beach years ago and was left there, so the owners’ current assertion that they want to prevent debris was not credible.

    “You folks have a poor record of cleaning up hazards on the beach,” Portnoy told Zehnder.

    But the commissioners felt they had to grant the emergency certification because of health and safety concerns. The Blasches’ engineer, John Harrison of Harrison-Hamnett in New Jersey, provided a dramatic description of how unsafe it would be for beachgoers.

    “Once you lose a couple piles, the additional piles won’t take the load,” Harrison said. “There is a good probability it will slide down the beach and rip away from a portion of the house.”

    Commission Chair Deborah Freeman said, “I don’t feel comfortable with a concrete slab hanging over the beach. I don’t want to be responsible for someone getting hurt.”

    Meanwhile, the Blasches’ lawsuit seeking to overturn the commission’s decision on the stone seawall is still pending. In its written denial, the commission warned that the wall could alter the movement of sand along the coast and cited potential harm to wildlife, shellfish habitats, and abutting properties: “Any interruption of the natural flow of sand (even with replenishment) and any increased rate of erosion and sand loss threatens the sand spit and ultimately Wellfleet Harbor’s protective barrier.”

    That lawsuit is now before Barnstable Superior Court and the Mass. Appeals Court. Since the original filing, Superior Court Judge Thomas Perrino has remanded it back to the conservation commission, which has taken its case to the Mass. Appeals Court regarding Perrino’s interpretation of a local bylaw, according to Amy Kwesell of KP Law, the town’s attorney. The Blasches have filed motions in Superior Court to block the appeal.

    ENVIRONMENT

    Sacrificial Sand Won’t Stop Erosion at Blasch House

    Restoration experts look to biomimicry and managed retreat

    By

    WELLFLEET — The huge pile of sand dumped over the edge of the bayside bluff next to the Blasch house in November has entirely washed away, adding sediment to the water column that may harm fish and shellfish. That’s why experts working to preserve coastal land look to biomimicry and retreat instead.

    As reported in the Independent on Nov. 14, 2019, the “sacrificial sand” was meant to act as a temporary buffer to keep the house from collapsing over the edge of the bluff. The thinking was that the sand would slow the rate of erosion by giving the waves something else besides the bluff to wash away.

    Blasch house dune restoration
    An estimated 5,000 cubic yards of sand has been added to the bluff below the Blasch house since 2013. This year’s addition, photographed on Nov. 12, 2019, was the largest ever. (Photos Jane Franke)

    But this year’s sand load, estimated at 2,000 cubic yards, did not stay in place for long. The “beach renourishment” lasted perhaps one month, according to observers.

    Owners Barbara and Mark Blasch are suing the town over another protective strategy they want to try: building a 241-foot sea wall in front of their house.

    Conservation Commissioner Barbara Brennessel walks the beach regularly and watched the pile of sand disappear.

    “Anyone who’s walked that beach can see that,” Brennessel said.

    Although she would not comment on the specifics of the Blasch property due to the lawsuit, Brennessel said that the benefits of beach renourishment are still open to debate. Often, wave and wind dynamics transport sand far from its starting point, she said.

    “In the future,” Brennnessel said, “the sacrificial sand may be put not where the project is occurring but somewhere else that makes more sense.”

    Cape Cod National Seashore maintenance chief Karst Hoogeboom agreed, adding sacrificial sand “doesn’t really slow the rate of erosion.”

    Safe Harbor Environmental Services director Gordon Peabody remembers a six-foot dune, lined with vegetation, that once existed on the beach in front of the Blasch house. But stronger winds and bigger waves during winter storms have increased erosion rates. Now, that protective dune is gone. The bluff takes the force of breaking waves and is retreating at a rate of about three feet per year. The 5,595-square-foot house was only 25 feet from the edge a year ago.

    “If you’re trying to do a dune restoration where there’s no dune, that’s not going to happen,” Peabody said.

    The minutes of a Nov. 6 conservation commission meeting note the group’s concern about the environmental effects of sacrificial sand. Studies have shown that high amounts of suspended sediment in the water column can affect ocean organisms’ health by clogging their gills.

    How to Restore a Dune

    Both Hoogeboom and Peabody have led dune restoration efforts that reject renourishment and employ revegetation and biomimicry instead. These methods put nature to work to create more lasting solutions.

    Dune restoration
    This photograph, taken Dec. 12, 2019, one month after the “renourishment” at left, shows no trace of the mountain of sand deposited by the property owner.

    High winds carry more sand. Therefore, slowing the wind with vegetation is crucial to these methods.

    At Ballston Beach in Truro, shortcuts through the dune vegetation led to massive erosion in the 1980s. As the vegetation was trampled, wind carried sand away and left the Pamet River’s headwaters unprotected.

    Called in by the town after a 2009 storm led to an overwashed Pamet River, Peabody’s team placed slices of shingling around the dune to mimic dune grass and create turbulence. This slowed the wind, allowing sand to drop out — in some storms, large quantities were collected. Over 14 months the dune grew 12 feet higher in some areas.

    Hoogeboom led a similar project to restore the dunes at Herring Cove in Provincetown. He said the final plantings of beach grass at the site were made just three weeks ago after a year and a half of work. Hoogeboom and his colleagues will now monitor the distance between the parking lot and beach to determine the rate of erosion.

    At Herring Cove, “We anticipate the shoreline will stabilize with a more predictable rate of erosion than we’ve seen,” Hoogeboom said. The dunes are expected to mitigate storm damage by buffering waves before they can reach the parking lot.

    Peabody said that about 400 feet of cross-section is enough for a coastal dune to weather storms. At that point, the dune itself changes the wind dynamics to collect its own sand without assistance.

    Ballston Beach in Truro
    In restoration, here at Ballston Beach in Truro, shingles and fencing can mimic the sand-catching effect of grasses. (Photo courtesy Gordon Peabody)

    But “when you’re down in Wellfleet on a coastal bank, that doesn’t work,” Peabody said.

    Photographs taken this week show how grasses planted on the bluff just below the Blasch house, presumably as part of a restoration effort, have been undermined by the wind. (See photo on page 1.)

    Even with these efforts, Hoogeboom, Peabody, and Brennessel agreed that the erosion cannot be stopped. Since the ice age, Cape Cod has been getting smaller, and human intervention can do little.

    “What we’re talking about is how to mitigate some of the detrimental parts of erosion on the habitat and coastline in general,” Brennessel said.

    Hoogeboom agreed. The Park Service prioritizes managed retreat: moving critical infrastructure inland. “We want to give natural forces a little space to act independently,” he said. “Not everybody has that option — people want to stabilize things in place. But long-term, it will keep eroding.”

    environment

    The DEP Says the Blasches May Build Their Wall

    The town still hopes to prevail against the revetment in court

    By

    Blasch house Wellfleet
    The Blasches hope a wall will protect their house from giving way to erosion. (Photo K.C. Myers)

    WELLFLEET — The owners of a mansion teetering on the edge of a dune near Great Island won approval from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to construct a 241-foot-long rock revetment to shore up the structure, despite opposition from the town and the Cape Cod National Seashore.

    The DEP approval does not, however, mean the wall can be built. There is still a pending court case between the Wellfleet Conservation Commission and Mark and Barbara Blasch, the owners of 1440 Chequessett Neck Road. That case hinges on the town’s Wetlands Protection Bylaw, which holds each project to much stricter environmental standards than the state law, said Wellfleet Town Administrator Dan Hoort.

    The foundation of the 5,817-square-foot Blasch house was less than 25 feet from the edge of a dune last year when the owners asked for permission to construct the rock revetment. The conservation commission denied their request, arguing that “armoring of the property is likely to lead to significant erosion. … The land to the south is a sand dune which protects Wellfleet Harbor. It is a thin strip of barrier beach composed of dunes which are constantly eroding and being replenished with new sand brought to the dune by both wind and wave action. Any interruption of the natural flow of sand (even with replenishment) and any increased rate of erosion and sand loss threatens the sand spit and ultimately Wellfleet Harbor’s protective barrier.”

    The DEP’s Sept. 12 granting of a superseding order of conditions to allow the construction is contrary to the agency’s own stated philosophy.

    “Normally, we prefer to keep it natural, with sand and plants,” said Edmund Coletta, DEP spokesman. “It’s not very often you want a permanent hard structure.”

    In this case, however, the DEP found the applicant demonstrated that there was no other method of protecting the building and that the wall will be constructed to “minimize adverse effects on adjacent or nearby coastal beaches due to changes in wave action,” according to the decision.

    John Cumbler, a member of the Wellfleet Conservation Commission, said he was “very surprised” the DEP issued the approval.

    “I thought we made a very solid environmental argument,” Cumbler said.

    Hoort said there was no point appealing the DEP’s decision, but the town holds out hope it will prevail in court.

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