A large house on Chappaquiddick inched slowly toward its destination this week across a deep, sandy trench at Wasque point, as early summer fog blew in and out and the ocean continued to eat away at a rapidly eroding bluff nearby.
Work progressed to relocate the 8,300-square-foot home owned by Richard and Jennifer Schifter.
A Chappaquiddick house was on the move this weekend, as the key part of a large and complicated project to relocate the home owned by Richard and Jennifer Schifter away from an eroding bluff began.
The actual move got underway on Saturday. The project started last fall with discussions in town hall and began in earnest in March as a rapidly eroding bluff at Wasque threatened the Schifter home.
Work continues on a massive house moving project on Chappaquiddick following the discovery of an archeological site of interest that turned out to be an old refuse pit probably used by Native Americans centuries ago.
Project engineer George Sourati said the tribe suspected there could be a significant archeological feature at one location.
A complicated house move that has temporarily transformed part of Wasque from a secluded point at the edge of the sea to a giant excavation and earth-moving operation is well underway.
The Edgartown conservation commission approved a large, complicated project Wednesday to move a Wasque Point home threatened by erosion. The approval comes after months of discussion during which town boards, experts and residents grappled with the environmental and logistical details of the project while faced with the urgency of a rapidly-eroding coastal bluff.
When George Santayana wrote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” he was not envisioning people repeating their own mistakes. But that is what is transpiring at Wasque Point on Chappaquiddick this spring. In 2007 the Schifter family completed a large house about 300 feet from the bluff edge. Six years later, with the house poised to fall into the ocean, they are proposing to move it about 300 feet from the edge while damaging the environment and native artifacts and disrupting users of this magnificent landscape.
