Video Tour of Quirky $2.2 Million Dollar House For Sale on an Ocean Cliff

By Amanda Thomason January 25, 2019 at 3:24pm

Going to open houses can be quite educational. There are few other (legal) times in life that you can just waltz into someone’s home and start making judgment calls about their taste without worrying they’ll overhear you.

You also learn, very quickly, what appeals to you in a living space, and what makes you shudder. Popcorn ceilings? Carpeted bathrooms? Counters that are only shin-high?

It’s more fun when you can go look at such travesties without being responsible for them. There are also places that are fun to look at because they’re beautiful, of course, but sometimes even the most beautiful homes have some of the most mind-boggling design — and not always in a good way.

Doug DeMuro has made a living by writing about unusual things, namely cars. The bio on his website explains his background.

“Born in Denver, Colorado, DeMuro received an economics degree from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, a highly esteemed private university that recently un-followed him on Twitter (this is true). After graduation, he put his Economics degree to good use at Porsche’s North American corporate headquarters, where he quickly rose to become the youngest manager in the company’s history – a surprising fact, considering that he still doesn’t know how to create bullet points in a Word document.

“Eventually, he quit his job to become a writer, largely because it meant that he no longer had to wear pants.

Would you buy this house?

“Today, you can find DeMuro in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he engages in a number of exciting pursuits, such as texting his friends instead of writing, cleaning his home instead of writing, and watching small insects on his floor instead of writing. Also, he wrote this entire thing in the third person.”

DeMuro decided to switch things up and review a house, which he shared with his Facebook followers on Jan. 23.

The rental house, perched on a spit of land at the edge of Nantucket Island, is being offered for the small sum of $2.2 million dollars. Fortunately, it’s also available to rent for people who don’t have that kind of pocket change.

DeMuro refers to the house as “quirky” and “cool,” but also reveals that summer rental prices clock in at around $2,000 a night. He’s there during the winter, for obvious financial reasons.

First, he shows off the major feature of the house, which is the location. The ocean is just a few steps away and down a steep cliff with no stairs.

He then goes to explain the curious row of six windows along the upper portion of the house. He said he assumed they were placed to bring light into some sort of living space, but they’re actually divided into sets of two: two windows are over a bathroom, two are over a shower, and two are over the front door.

And yes, those windows are so far above you that there’s no chance you can actually look out of them. They even have control panels so you can open and close them (a necessity for the shower, which apparently will set off the fire alarm if the windows are closed).

Other odd features include a loft bedroom that is only accessible by crossing directly through and up a set of stairs located in the master bedroom. There are no real walls separating the two bedrooms, and to make matters even more strange, there’s a porthole inches above the baseboards that looks right into the kitchen. No shades, no cover, no door: open access all day, every day.

There’s also a sunken patio with a gorgeous view of a retention wall. The most concerning thing by far, though, is that the house is in jeopardy. For this property, time is money — and time may be running out.

The ocean is slowly but steadily eroding the edge of the island, and has already claimed several houses along the coastline. In an effort to preserve the house (which, according to its rental page was built in 1939) a bit longer, it was moved 100 feet back from the bluff in 2010.

That’s a rather large price tag for a quirky house in (possible) limbo. Would you spend a holiday in this unusual house-on-a-cliff?

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