Man's $899K bet on Nantucket cliff cottage: Still standing 5 years later

When Charles Fotopoulos bought a small cottage on Nantucket’s Sconset Bluff in September 2021, he knew the property came with a serious risk: the Atlantic Ocean was steadily eating away at the land beneath it. Fotopoulos, a Massachusetts car dealer, and his wife, Miglena, paid $899,000 for 93 Baxter Road, a 1951 cottage perched near the edge of the bluff. The price was notably low for Nantucket, where luxury properties can sell for many millions of dollars. Five years later, the cottage remains standing. But the amount of land separating it from the edge of the bluff has become extremely small. According to the Nantucket Current, only a few feet of ground now separate the rear of the home from a roughly 40-foot drop to the beach below. When the cottage was built, the ocean was hundreds of yards away. He knew the risks before buying Fotopoulos did not hide the reason he was willing to take the gamble. “It was cheap and I said ‘hey, I’ll buy it’,” he told the Nantucket Current after the 2021 purchase. He said he believed the foundation was structurally sound and that the geotubes protecting the bluff could help keep the property safe. “If I get five years out of it, I think I’m good. I’ll take that any day,” he said. The property’s location also offered something difficult to put a price on: an unobstructed view of the Atlantic. “It’s both a great view, and a scary view,” Fotopoulos said. That combination has defined the cottage’s recent history. The previous owners also tried to save it Charles Fotopoulos bought the Nantucket cottage in 2021, saying he would be satisfied if it lasted five years. (Photo: Nantucket Current) Steven and Erin Freeman purchased the property for $1.53 million in 2007, when an estimated 50 to 70 feet of land separated the cottage from the bluff’s edge. They eventually sold it to the Fotopouloses for $899,000, taking a loss of roughly $631,000 on the sale price alone. The Freemans had previously taken steps to protect the property. In 2010, they moved the house farther back toward Baxter Road. In 2017, they also carried out work to reinforce the top of the bluff. The work was not approved by Nantucket’s Conservation Commission, which later issued an enforcement order. The couple were also involved with the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund, a group of property owners that has supported the use of geotubes along the coastline. Real estate broker Jamie Howarth said the buyers understood what they were getting into. “They knew the risks going in,” Howarth told the Nantucket Current in 2021. “I was clear with him and we were clear with him that there was serious risk.” The cottage has also been used as a rental The cottage at 93 Baxter Road once had far more land between the house and the edge of the bluff. (Photo: Nantucket Current) Despite the erosion concerns, the property has continued to generate rental income. Howarth suggested that the Freemans may have recovered some of their financial loss through summer rentals, with peak weeks reportedly reaching as much as $10,000. The new owners appear to have explored the same option. Listing records show the cottage was advertised for rent at $10,000 a month in September 2025. During the most recent summer, it reportedly rented for $29,500 per month. Fotopoulos had previously argued that the property still made financial sense despite its precarious location. “It is what it is. It’s a hole in the ocean on Nantucket. It’s really worth $8 million if you really think about it,” he said, pointing to an $8.4 million comparable property nearby. Today, comparable Nantucket properties with ocean views are listed at prices ranging from about $11.5 million to $29 million. Geotubes remain at the centre of the dispute One of the main protections for the cottage has been a system of geotubes at the base of the bluff. The large fabric structures are filled with sand and positioned along the shoreline to absorb the force of the waves. They have helped slow erosion in parts of the area, but their presence has also become the subject of a long-running dispute on Nantucket. The Conservation Commission voted in 2021 to have the geotubes removed, while the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund continued fighting to maintain the coastal protection. The debate intensified this year after additional sections of the bluff collapsed. In March, the commission's chair warned that the project could be approaching “complete failure.” A winter storm with wind gusts exceeding 80 mph subsequently removed additional sand from the shoreline. A larger battle over coastal protection The cottage at 93 Baxter Road has become part of a wider debate about how Nantucket should respond to coastal erosion and whether structures such as geotubes should be expanded. At Town Meeting this spring, voters narrowly rejected a proposal to extend the coastal protection system by 3,000 feet. A Superior Court judge later sided with the expansion permit in August. Meanwhile, the Conservation Commission indicated that it could allow repairs to a damaged section of the existing system following what officials described as suspected vandalism in January. State environmental regulators also raised concerns about the proposal in an August 31 letter, identifying 12 unresolved issues. The dispute has implications beyond the single cottage. Critics of the coastal armoring project have argued that older homes such as 93 Baxter Road play a role in providing the legal basis for hard coastal protection. “The presence of that pre-1978 house is what provides the legal justification, in part, for the permitting of hard armoring,” Nantucket Coastal Conservancy’s D. Anne Atherton said around the time of the 2021 sale. The Fotopouloses have no connection to the preservation group. Five years later, the cottage is still there When Fotopoulos purchased 93 Baxter Road, he said he would be satisfied if the cottage survived for five years. That five-year mark has now arrived, but the landscape around the house has changed dramatically. The bluff has continued to retreat, leaving only a narrow strip of land between the cottage and the drop to the beach. For Fotopoulos, the uncertainty remains part of owning the property. “How long does it last? You and I don’t know that,” he said.