ORLEANS — The Seashore Park Inn, a 62-room motel located just west of the Orleans-Eastham Route 6 rotary, is scheduled to go on the foreclosure auction block on March 21.
Taylor Banks Perkins, a hotelier based in York, Maine, purchased the property through his company, Cape Cod Lodge, in July 2022 for $5.15 million, according to the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds. The property is currently assessed at $4,680,600 by the town of Orleans.
The auction is scheduled to be held at noon at the 3.2-acre hotel property, according to auctioneer Dan McLaughlin and a public listing of the event.
Perkins sent an email to the Independent just before this edition’s deadline to say that the auction had been canceled, adding that McLaughlin had not yet been notified because the cancelation had not yet been made public.
According to Orleans Treasurer Scott Walker, Cape Cod Lodge is not in arrears on its property taxes, but it does owe the town $7,597 in water charges. A $5.25-million mortgage on the property was written in August 2023 by Coastal Heritage Bank, according to documents at the registry of deeds, and the bank began filing preliminary foreclosure documents in late January.
The property at 24 Canal Road includes the inn, two swimming pools, and a parking lot. It is coming onto the market at a time when many towns are seeking opportunities to purchase land for affordable housing, including by redeveloping motels and campgrounds.
Orleans is currently selecting a developer to build about 77 units of housing at the 5.5-acre site of the former Governor Prence Motel on Route 6A, according to Orleans Select Board chair Michael Herman.
The affordable housing developer Pennrose is also building 62 units near Skaket Corners in Orleans.
The town’s 10-year housing plan, released in November, found that Orleans is projected to fall 500 to 600 units short of the demand for year-round housing by 2030.
“I can’t discuss the official position of the town,” Herman said about the impending auction of Seashore Park. “We are monitoring it and aware of it, and we believe it’s an important property.”
Last October, Perkins was able to cancel the scheduled auction of the York Beach Surf Club, a 52-unit boutique hotel in York, Maine, that his family bought in 2020. That same hotel was also refinanced right before another scheduled foreclosure in November 2021.
Cape Cod Lodge and two other companies managed by Perkins were sued in Barnstable County Superior Court in March 2023 by Shepley Wood Products, a Hyannis-based building materials company that alleged it had provided building materials and labor to Perkins’s companies, including for work at the Seashore Park Inn, and was never paid.
Judge Michael Callan ultimately filed judgments against Perkins’s companies for more than $122,000 last Aug. 29. The companies paid immediately and in full, according to a filing by Shepley Wood Products on Aug. 30 that ended the case.
