Neighbourhoods
Calder Bluff, explained
Twenty-two houses, one road, and a planning history that explains why there will never be a twenty-third.
Nour Haddad
8 min read
Calder Bluff is twenty-two houses on a single road that ends at a turning circle. There will never be a twenty-third, and understanding why is most of what you need to know about buying here.
The road was laid in 1961 to serve a planned development of forty plots. Twenty-two were built before the 1974 coastal protection designation stopped the rest, and the designation has been reaffirmed twice since. The remaining land is now permanently undevelopable, which means every house on the bluff owns a view that is legally protected rather than merely lucky.
The plots run between three-quarters of an acre and two and a half. The granite shelf sits between forty and ninety feet above mean high water depending on where you are along the road, and the erosion rate across the whole bluff has averaged under three inches a year since records began — one of the most stable stretches on the eastern seaboard.
What you are buying into practically is a road with no through traffic, neighbours you will see perhaps twice a week, and a twelve-minute drive to anything at all. What you are buying into financially is scarcity that cannot be diluted.
Houses here turn over roughly twice a decade. When one does, it usually sells to someone who registered with us long before it was listed.
Nour Haddad
Associate — Calder Bluff & the Cliffs
Nour grew up three doors from the Calder Bluff road and knows which plots hold their light in February. She specialises in exposed cliff-top properties and the planning conversations that come with them.
