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California mansion owner says he’s ‘checking every hour’ as multimillion-dollar home teeters on the edge of a cliff

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Social Links for Melissa Koenig
Published March 1, 2024, 7:19 a.m. ET

The owner of one of the multimillion-dollar mansions left teetering on cliffs in California says he is so terrified it will collapse into the Pacific Ocean that he is forced to make cautious checks “every hour.”

Dramatic photos show Alan Ashavi’s property coming to an abrupt end past his pool in the backyard — which survived last year as several of his neighbors lost chunks of their own homes.

Ashavi said he has been building his dream home there for 12 years, with the abrupt cliff now part of it after an atmospheric river caused a landslide last month.

“Well, it is nerve-wracking because you deal with it on a daily basis and you come in here and check every day or every hour sometimes,” Ashavi said.

An aerial view of mansions still standing along a cliff after a portion of the cliffside tumbled to the Pacific Ocean following days of heavy rains.
Two powerful storms that battered Southern California in recent months have eroded the land, leaving some cliffside homes on the verge of collapse. Getty Images

“I know this is an El Niño year as far as the rain, so I’ve had it in the back of my mind about being involved with the construction,” the 66-year-old homeowner said.

His is just one of several San Clemente homes that are on the verge of collapse, as their once-idyllic properties overlooking the Pacific Ocean are at risk of falling into the water following two powerful storms that have eroded the land.

In Dana Point, about a 10-minute drive north, three multimillion-dollar properties are close to falling off the edge of another cliff.

Getty Images

Even a nuclear power plant in San Onofre has been deemed vulnerable to erosion and sea rise.

A University of California at Irvine professor now fears the situation may grow even more dire — with land erosion moving inland.

“We have these atmospheric rivers coming off the oceans, drops the rain here on these hills, and then the hills start eroding as well,” climate change professor Kathleen Treseder told Reuters.

“And so not only do we have this erosion right here from the waves, but we also have erosion up inland caused by the rainfall.”

In a stark warning, Treseder said: “We have many, many multimillion-dollar homes all along this coast that will be falling into the ocean.”

With Post wires