On Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at 10:42:36 AM UTC-4, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 8/7/2018 9:30 AM, Wayne.B wrote:
On Tue, 7 Aug 2018 06:17:28 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

If it's privately owned, then no public money should be used to prop it up. Why should state and federal tax money be used to "save" a bunch of rich people? Some might argue that it's a national treasure, but it's one I can't set foot on.

===

Exactly. It's too bad for the people who live there but it should
come as no surprise to them. Like many other beaches it has probably
been eroding for years. Beaches do that, and the sand that goes
missing ends up somewhere else to build a new beach.

In some ways it's like the people who build or buy a house near an
airport and are then surprised that planes are making noise.



We almost bought a house south of Plymouth (near the Cape) that was
built high up on a cliff overlooking the southern part of Cape Cod
Bay. I loved the house, the view and the fact that we would be
able to have a mooring block for the Navigator, although the climb
down the stairs to the the water wasn't something you'd want to do
five times a day.

Anyway, the house sat 60 feet from the edge of the cliff. We started
the paperwork and at one point the realtor handed me a disclosure to
sign. The disclosure (required by law) was related to the erosion
history of the cliffs and indicated that they lost approximately 8
inches a year over the last 40 or 50 years. I divided the
60 feet by 8 inches and determined we'd have 90 years before the
house fell in the ocean. Then I found out that the 8
inches/year was just an average .... some years there was no erosion
but some years with big storms caused over 20 feet of the cliff to
fall away.

Decided my luck wasn't that good and we passed on the house.

The insurance on a house like that has to be staggering. We have some friends that have an ocean-front house here in SC. It was initially an investment that they figured they could pass on to their three kids. While they raised some great kids, none went into a field as lucrative as their father (cardio-vascular surgeon), so they realized the kids just wouldn't be able to afford to keep it. The taxes and insurance bills are just too much.

We just got back from our Maine trip, and one of the stops we made was Kennebunkport. There are some really cool houses there. Rode by the Bush compound both on land and by water (lobsta boat tour). Waved at the Secret Service boat that was out patrolling. Nice guys... they knew we were Republicans.