By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-19 17:25:41 | Updated at 2026-07-20 11:08:40
17 hours ago
A multi-millionaire California homeowner is watching helplessly as his cliffside mansion slowly slides off a cliff — with a “super El Niño” expected to hit this year.
Raymond Nooten, an 82-year-old ophthalmologist, has lived in a dream $10 million property on Dana Point for over 30 years.
His house, which he has expanded further towards the bluff over the years, is widely believed to have the best views of the Pacific Ocean in the entire region.
But now he braces every time a storm rolls in, with the sprawling home dangling dangerously close to a 70ft drop on to train tracks and then the beach below.
It comes as thousands of Californians up and down the coast are battling to save their properties from coastal erosion and landslides that leave them perilously close to losing their nest eggs.
Experts warn a huge El Niño expected to hit the Golden State later this year is going to wreak havoc, with cliffs, bluffs and beaches wiped out.
Nooten told The Post: “You’re stepping on 70 pylons that go 70 feet all the way down to the bedrock for support — keep up the pool, keep up the house and keep up the basement.
“My architect told me you wouldn’t be able to build a house like this anymore,” he told the Post. While the ocean views are breathtaking, so is the sheer cliff that drops away just beyond the backyard. “
On the prospect of El Niño hitting, he said: “It’s going to do what its going to do, its going to rain when its going to rain.”
While Nooten said his property is “fine” for now, he acknowledged that some of his neighbors have had damage in the past from severe weather, including a pool that “caved in after a rainstorm.”
“There are some other properties on the coast where they actually had to put tarps down so the water would run off the dirt because they have had more erosion,” Nooten told the Post, adding that the worst damage has actually been directly beneath him.
“It’s happening below me, all these on beach row — they’re very close to the ocean,” he said.
Nooten said when he moved into the home in 1996, he could look out his window and see roughly 100 yards of sandy beach.
Nearly three decades later, much of that sand has disappeared, leaving waves breaking almost directly below the bluff.
He added: “I used to get calls, and I still do, ‘do you want to sell, do you want to sell?’ I can sell this just like that. I don’t get as many now because I told everybody no, I’m going to die in this house.”
Gary Griggs, professor of earth sciences at University of California, Santa Cruz, said large waves and elevated sea levels are undercutting coastal bluffs, increasing the risk of landslides and cliff failures.
He told The Post: “We’re talking about a super El Nino, and what we’ve seen in the past — basically, two general coastal environments.
“There’s beach-level construction, and places like Balboa, Newport, they’re on the sand basically, so elevating it a foot or so and then bringing in waves, that’s one problem. The bluffs and cliffs are a totally different problem.”
Griggs, who also does consulting for people looking to buy a home on the coast, said high water, high tide, and big waves coupled with heavy rainfall weaken the bluffs and that’s when cliff collapse occurs.
He said: “I ask myself when I write a report, would I live there? I’m going to be more conservative because my whole career has been spent on coastal hazards and coastal engineering and I would say, no, I wouldn’t.”
El Niño is climate pattern caused by warmer-than-average Pacific Ocean temperatures that bring heavy rainfall that can result in flooding and landslides.
California has faced several extreme ones in the past, causing damaged homes, cliff erosion and landslides.
Most recently, in 2015-2016 the weather phenomenon resulted in the highest recorded beach erosion in California history, with researchers warning if the pattern continues the costal region will become “increasingly vulnerable to coastal hazards.”
This year could be even worse.
Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center (NOAA) are predicting a 1-in-3 chance of a super El Niño in October, November, and December.
Griggs said disappearing beaches are only the beginning, warning the more than 25 million people living along Southern California’s coast that increasingly severe storms will leave retreat as the only viable long-term solution.
He said: “We’re going to have to start retreating. I’ve seen a number of places that have failed or been taken down during these big winters. But nobody really wants to do that, nobody wants to deal with it.”
On this year’s El Nino, he added: “If the past is any indication and these signs we’re seeing from satellite images, it’s going to be a big event, and it’s going to affect beaches and cliffs and bluffs.”
