A sinkhole opened beneath a $10.5 million Malibu beachfront property tied to actor Nicolas Cage on Tuesday evening, growing large enough that neighbors could see ocean waves moving underneath the driveway as coastal erosion ate away the bluff supporting the home, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.
The collapse was reported just after 6:20 p.m. on September 8 in the 31600 block of Sea Level Drive East, near Point Lechuza. The property was reportedly sold to Cage in 2024, according to available sales records cited by ABC7.
What actually caused the ground to give way
The culprit wasn’t a single storm event but weeks of accumulated wave action chewing into the bluff beneath the home, damaging both water and gas lines in the process. Malibu’s emergency services director issued a local emergency declaration for the area, and Southern California Gas Company crews shut off gas service to the property Tuesday morning as a precaution.
Officials warned the situation could still get worse. Conditions were expected to be aggravated by high tides and rain moving through from the remnants of former Hurricane Marie, adding more water pressure against an already compromised bluff.
Five homes evacuated, one road red-tagged
The damage wasn’t contained to a single lot. Los Angeles County Fire Department and Sheriff’s Department personnel issued evacuation orders for five neighboring homes along the same private road, and multiple properties were red-tagged — meaning county inspectors deemed them unsafe to occupy until further assessment. Crews laid sandbags along the shoreline in an attempt to slow additional erosion from reaching adjacent lots.
The American Red Cross set up a temporary shelter at Malibu High School for displaced residents while the extent of the damage is assessed.
A familiar risk for California’s most expensive coastline
Malibu’s beachfront strip has spent decades trading on the same feature now threatening it: direct exposure to the Pacific. Homes built directly on or near eroding bluffs face a slow-motion structural risk that doesn’t show up on a standard home inspection; bluff retreat and undermining that can take years to become visible and then fail within days once a storm cycle hits at the wrong tide. This event is a reminder that even multimillion-dollar coastal property isn’t insulated from the same erosion mechanics that threaten far less expensive homes up and down the same stretch of coast; what changes at this price point is simply how much value is sitting on top of the eroding ground.
As of this week, crews were still monitoring the expanding sinkhole and working to prevent it from spreading further into the road and adjacent lots, with no timeline yet for repair or reoccupation of the affected homes.