Sheep Pond Road house stays on beach, for now
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
There are no immediate plans to remove Charles Warner's postand beam saltbox house, currently resting on its deck on his beach at 25 Sheep Pond Road, from the shore.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent From the air, it is apparent that 25 Sheep Pond Road owner Charles Warner is all of out of land. The town is awaiting a response to its inquiry as to Warner's intentions for his errant beach cottage that the Patriot's Day storm dragged onto the sand.

More than a week after the Patriot's Day southeaster eroded the bank beneath the easternmost of Warner's two summer houses on Sheep Pond Road, neither Warner nor the town have a plan for getting the house off the beach.

Warner's caretaker, Jeremy Nelson, said he is waiting to hear from his employer for such a plan.

Both houses, although not officially condemned by the Building Department, which did declare the buildings unsafe to live in, are inhabitable, the house on the beach for obvious reasons and the house still standing because its septic system that it shared with the other house is exposed and sitting on the beach. The latter also had its southeast corner undermined by storm waves.

Several town departments including the Nantucket Fire Department, the Conservation Commission and the Board of Selectmen are in a holding pattern until they hear from Warner.

"There's a very specific procedure as to the removal of structure that becomes dangerous and unsafe and there are various steps that must be followed," said Town Administrator Libby Gibson. "But before we initiate that, we are trying to get in touch with the owner to find out what his plans are for removal."

The house now rests partially on the bank and partially on the beach at a roughly 45-degree angle. Though the beach is starting to accrete, according to Nelson, who, until last week's storm had lived in the west house, the town worries that waves repeatedly breaking on the house or another storm could break it apart, sending debris out into the ocean and westward down the beach.

Traditionally on Nantucket, when houses tumble onto the beach, after they are declared total losses by their owners' insurance companies, the town has elected to burn them in place to avoid as much as possible, structural building materials being scattered up and down the beach. However, Nantucket Fire Chief Mark McDougall said that is a last resort if the house is not salvageable and something that the owner must decide to do or the town if the owner abandon's the house. Like Gibson, McDougall is waiting to hear what Warner wants to do with his house.

Another danger are the giant sandbags Warner installed in front of both houses to protect them from storms just like last week's southeaster. The bags are known to tear open, empty out and float free, posing potential navigational hazards at sea and ensnare marine wildlife.

Conservation Commission Administrator Dirk Roggeveen said the state's Department of Environmental Protection permitted Warner's sandbags in a superceding order of conditions after the ConCom denied his sandbag project. But Roggeveen could not say whether the DEP would require Warner to remove his sandbags.

Gibson said that the Building Department's determination that the building is unsafe must be followed by a notice to Warner, according to Massachusetts General Laws.

Warner would then have 24 hours to secure his house and make it safe before the town could begin fining him up to $100 a day for each day he is in violation and if it chose to, could do what it had to to remove the house from the beach.

"We don't want the remains of this house strewn all over the beach," said Gibson who added that Warner has not been notified of his house's safety

status as of Monday afternoon. I