Paul Simon Is Having His Hamptons Cottage Relocated—and, Amazingly, He’s Not Alone

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Paul Simon‘s one-story cottage in the Hamptons could soon be slip slidin’ away—right down an eroding bluff.

But the better half of Simon & Garfunkel isn’t taking his battle with nature lying down. The dire situation, which is becoming more and more prevalent in some of the highest profile, celeb-rich coastal areas of Long Island, led the singer to begin the process of physically moving his home off its foundation and relocating it about 80 feet inland, Newsday reports.

The cottage, built about 70 years ago on the site of an old World War II bunker, is only about 20 feet from the edge of a 65-foot cliff on the Atlantic Ocean, according to The Daily Mail. It’s on the same property as Simon’s $10.5 million mansion.

The author of “Graceland” applied for a permit earlier this year to allow him to build a permanent foundation in the new spot for the cottage. It could be approved by the East Hampton Town Planning Department as early as next month. Simon also plans to add a 50-foot buffer of native vegetation over where the cottage originally stood, to help stabilize the bluff.

Erosion isn’t only happening on the tony, eastern coast of the Hamptons—a place where wealthy homeowners have the money needed to attempt to steady deteriorating bluffs, or even move a home. More and more folks living along the nation’s coastlines, as well as on large lakes and rivers, are having the same problems, as climate change leads to rising sea levels, say scientists. That allows storm waves to travel farther up a beach and pound against the base of many bluffs, weakening and ultimately damaging them.

“Moving houses back is becoming more common, as it’s becoming harder and harder to make bluffs in front of homes stable,” says coastal engineering specialist Gene Clark, of the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.

And those relocations don’t come cheap. Geologist Wendi Goldsmith, who is consulting on the relocation of Simon’s cottage, declined to say how much the move will set Simon back. But it can run anywhere from $50,000 to uproot a small home to more than a $1 million to move a larger residence, she says.

So what are homeowners to do if they want those sweeping bluffside views—without the threat of their homes careening over the edge?

What to look for before you buy a cliffside home

• Buyers, with a coastal geologist or engineer, should carefully inspect the slope of the bluff their dream abode rests upon before pulling out their checkbook. “The milder, less steep the slope, the better,” says Clark. It’s also best if the slope is diagonal, with the thickest portion at the base, to buffer the home from landslides.

• Folks should also look for plenty of shrubs, bushes, and young trees growing on the top of the bluff, he says. These absorb more water and anchor the cliff much better than, say, grass. Lots of splotches of exposed sand or clay on the ground or the slope of the bluff are not good news.

Signs that a bluff may be eroding

• Once you’ve lived on or visited a bluff for awhile, you should have a sense of whether the slope is moving or changing direction. If you can’t see it visually, check whether the vegetation is sliding down the slope or disappearing at the bottom of the cliff. If the bluff is moving or shifting direction, that could mean it is eroding.

• Watch out for wet spots. Homeowners who see puddles or watery areas along the slope of the bluff may want to get the situation checked out. Water “makes the bluffs more unstable” and more likely to collapse, Clark says.

• Another ominous omen: cracks appearing on the ground on the top of the cliff, allowing more water to seep into the bluff and to weaken it further. “That’s a very bad sign,” says Clark. “That will tell you that [a collapse is] imminent.”

How to preserve homes located on eroding bluffs

• Consider having a seawall built. Climate geologists and engineers can assess the damage and recommend whether to fortify the base of the cliff with, for example, rocks and boulders, to protect it from wave damage. That can set homeowners back more than $100,000, depending on how far the wall extends.

• In some cases, it may be possible to push back the top of the bluff. That means the cliff is essentially shaved back on an incline, to stabilize the land that the home sits on at the very top. Then shrubs are planted to further stabilize the land. “That’s not inexpensive to do, and you’re losing property,” Clark says of the process, which can also run tens of thousands of dollars. “If your house was relatively close to the bluff to begin with, that’s not possible.”

• The last-ditch scenario, of course, is to loosen a home from its foundation and move it to a new, safer location.

“Now storms are more intense and sea levels are rising,” says Goldsmith, the geologist. “As more people become [alerted to] the threat and are aware of the options for dealing with it, I do expect [home relocations] will become more common.”

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