Structure remains for now on site of old homeless camp
A West Ocean City property owner was surprised last week to find a house on what he thought was unimproved property.
Keith Coffin, who owns the old Shore Drive-In theater property on Route 50, took to social media upon finding a house built out of liquor and wine bottles on the overgrown property.
“I was amazed,” he said. “This thing is sturdy. It had a front door, it had windows.”
Several years ago, when Coffin bought the old drive-in property he encountered a homeless man there when he went to do some engineering work. Coffin told the man, who said his name was Lee, that he was welcome to stay there as long as the site was kept clean.
“I guess when I was so receptive he told his friends,” Coffin said.
With more and more people on the property, however, trash became a problem and Coffin last week had police respond to the site to ask those camped there to move on. After visiting the property, the officer who’d responded called Coffin.
“He said, ‘do you realize there’s a house out here,’” Coffin recalled. “I said ‘no, it’s unimproved property.’ He said ‘no it’s a house and it’s made out of whiskey and wine bottles. It’s the damndest thing.’”
Clever building. I saw a few bottle houses in New Mexico and Arizona years back. One was all green bottles.