The Story
Sentinel Bluff is 58 acres of coastal blufftop and beach access sitting in the one remaining gap of our coastal trail corridor, between Salt Marsh Point to the south and a state-owned coastal preserve to the north. Protecting it would complete an unbroken 4.6-mile stretch of public-accessible coastline for the first time in the trust’s history — the coastal counterpart to what Granite Creek Meadows would complete inland.
The bluff itself is actively eroding at a documented rate of roughly 8-14 inches per year, which makes this both an urgent habitat question and a genuinely difficult acquisition: any structures or agricultural use on the parcel have a shrinking useful life regardless of who owns it, which has kept the asking price within reach but also means engineering a stable public trail alignment here takes real geotechnical planning, not just a purchase.
The current owner has listed the property on the open market with interest from a private coastal-view homebuyer, which would end any realistic chance of completing the coastal corridor at this location. We have a signed right-of-first-refusal through 2026 and have raised 34% of the $2.8 million acquisition and bluff-stabilization budget. This is the coastal system’s version of the same unfinished-corridor story Granite Creek Meadows tells inland — and, like that gap, it’s where a gift makes the most concrete difference right now.
