Storm victims get busy moving their houses back
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Four Madaket beach property owners who lost crucial dune and bluff to the Nov. 3 nor'easter are gearing up to move their storm-ravaged houses away from the ever-advancing ocean.

Realizing that the gaping hole in their summer haven is an invitation for the Atlantic Ocean to wash in and rip apart what is left of their cottage, owners John and Marny Conforti, and Ronald G. and Diane R. Russo of Brooklyn, N.Y. are preparing to move their building.

The Confortis and the Russos suffered significant damage to their Massachusetts Avenue house during Hurricane Noel's masquerade as a nor'easter, as did three other Madaket property owners who are in varying stages of salvaging their summer homes.

"For us, the plan is we're really trying hard to get the house moved and we're dealing with insurance companies; we're looking to stay and Nantucket has gotten away from us to buy another house," said John Conforti. "We have some room there, so we want to get it to the back corner of the property. I was a schoolteacher when we bought that property. We never

dreamt that this could happen."

When the Confortis bought the property 25 years ago, with the Russos joining them in ownership five years later, there was parking in front of their house and several dunes between them and the ocean.

"When we first bought it, we couldn't see the ocean, we could see the bay," he said.

That same view is what Conforti's neighbor, Martin Levine at 45 Massachusetts Ave. can have if he decides to leave his house where it is. Last week, Levine of Westport, Conn., acting on an enforcement order from the Conservation Commission issued on Nov. 6, lifted his house up and moved it back into the dunes on his lot, resting it temporarily on oak cribbing blocks. ConCom Administrator Dirk Roggeveen said that it is possible for Levine to re-site his house on the remainder of his lot.

"His long-term intent is to put it back further on his lot, but he needs zoning variance," said Roggeveen.

Further up the beach, the fate of Wellesley, Mass. resident Francis Callaghan, Jr.'s house, which the Toscana Corp. previously moved back 95 feet and set on 16 pilings, is unknown at this point, as neither Roggeveen nor island attorney Richard J. Glidden, who represents Callaghan, have heard from the 36 Massachusetts Ave. owner. But right next door, Tom Erichsen has already decided to move his embattled 34 Rhode Island Ave. house to another lot well inland of his existing beachfront property.

Erichsen, president of the Smith's Point Association and, as such, well tuned to the erosion situation from the end of Madaket Road out to Esther Island, already moved his house back around 46 feet to a new foundation earlier this year. After the Nov. 3 nor'easter left his septic system exposed, his deck dangling over the beach and utility cables and pipes protruding out from his bluff, the ConCom issued an enforcement order on Nov. 6 for him to move his house again.

"We moved it back last week," said Erichsen. "We're going to see if we can find a piece of property. We have, in the last six weeks, lost 12 feet a week. The [south] end of Massachusetts Avenue and the end of Rhode Island Avenue has been the most heavily eroded in the last six to eight weeks."

Erichsen blames the severe erosion of this part of Madaket on a hurricane in February 2003 that erased a shoal running parallel to the beach and 575 feet off the shore.

"Ever since that storm, the large 12- to 16-foot waves are coming into the beach and chewing it away,"

he said. I