There are still some people out there who deny the reality of climate change and sea level rise but the owner of 10 Dolphin Drive in Vero Isles does not appear to be one of them.

The property owner is well along with construction of a substantial new home on the lot at that address that includes the highest seawall in Vero Isles, which towers 5 feet or so above the seawalls on either side, rising 6.5 feet above current sea level.

“No other Vero Isles properties have proposed or permitted to install a seawall with the seawall cap at the same or similar elevation as the seawall constructed at 10 Dolphin Drive,” Vero Beach planning and development director Jason Jefferies said in an email.

The new 114-foot-long seawall, which looms up across the canal on the south side of A.W. Young Park, looks out of place compared to neighboring properties, but appears to be a sensible preparation for the future.

The sea level along Florida’s east coast has risen 7.3 inches since 1970, according to National Sea Level Explorer, a federal website that combines data from eight U.S. government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, FEMA, NASA, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Defense.

The level is expected to rise 9 more inches by 2050, according to the site, which notes that the rate of sea level rise is steadily increasing due to continued global warming.

That would make the 2050 water level 16 inches higher than when Vero Isles was developed, and other sources project greater sea level rise sooner.

A climate vulnerability and adaptation report prepared for Indian River County in 2022 predicts sea level will be 18 inches higher than when the community was laid out by 2040, just 15 years from now.

Already, the original low concrete seawall that lines the canals in Vero Isles is submerged at times when there are king tides. If government scientists are correct, parts of many backyards in the community will be periodically covered with brackish water by the middle of the century.

A recent boat tour of the canals discovered that when new homes go in, they most often come with higher seawalls, especially at the tips of the six small peninsulas that make up the community, where homes front on the wide and sometimes stormy Indian River Lagoon.

But none are as formidable as the seawall at 10 Dolphin Drive.

According to plans on file at the county, the corrugated vinyl wall is 133.8 feet long, with 12-foot returns at each end. Heavy, interlocking vinyl sheet piles go down 12 feet into the earth and rise 6.5 feet above the water, topped with a steel-reinforced concrete cap.

The original concrete seawall was left in place behind the new wall, providing stability and the new wall is anchored and buttressed by stainless steel rods that angle down through the earth to concrete “deadman anchors,” big 2-foot chunks of concrete buried in the backyard.

Jefferies said there are no city requirements for seawall heights when new homes are built in Vero Isles, but FEMA has requirements for the elevation of the homes themselves that vary according to the flood zone they are in.

“If in a FEMA Flood Zone, the residential structure is required to have a finished floor one foot above the base flood elevation,” Jeffries said. “Many properties in Vero Isles are in Flood Zone AE 5; others are in Flood Zone X. A home in Flood Zone AE 5 is required to have a finish floor” 6 feet above sea level.

AE flood zones are high-risk areas that present a 1-percent annual chance of flooding and a 26-percent chance over the life of a 30-year mortgage, according to FEMA.

Plans for the new home show the line of the AE flood zone encompassing part of the lot at 10 Dolphin Drive, taking in a small piece of the front yard, most of the backyard, and catching the back corners of the new house.

But the 4,200-square-foot concrete block house is elevated 8 feet above sea level, according to the plans, two feet more than required, and with the impressive seawall it should stay high and dry for decades to come.

According to the county report, sea level is expected to rise in Vero Beach by 3.2 feet by 2070, 45 years from now, but that would only come a little more halfway up the new sea wall.

Even with the AE flood zone weaving through the community, Vero Isles is not as vulnerable to floods as it might seem at first glance. When the community was developed by the City of Vero Beach in the 1950s, sand and dirt scooped out to create the canals was piled onto the peninsulas, raising their elevation.

Much of the subdivision is in Flood Zone X, which is low risk, and when new homes are built the lots are typically raised further.

The concrete-encased peninsulas were high and dry by 1957, and the first homes had been built. The original house at 10 Dolphin Drive was built in the early 1960s and shows in an aerial photograph taken in 1967.

You could still get a lot for $19,000 in Vero Isles 1988, but property in the community has gained value since then. A prime lot on the Indian River at 3 Sailfish Drive sold in February 2024 for $2.8 million and a neighboring property at 1 Sailfish with a large home built in 2008 – and the second-highest seawall in the community – closed a couple of months later for $3.8 million, a record price for Vero Isles.

The current owner of 10 Dolphin Drive, James R. Atkins who is listed in state records as owner of Rob Atkins Architecture on Royal Palm Pointe, bought the property in 2016, paying $640,000.

He applied for a building permit in December 2023 that was issued in March 2024, according to county records. That was followed by a demolition permit three months later and the old house was taken down shortly thereafter.

The shell of the new home is complete, with metal roof on and windows in, safe and secure behind the new seawall.

The owner’s exact thinking about sea level rise is unclear. The architect – who may or may not be the owner – refused to comment, and the contractor building the house did not return phone or text messages inquiring about the height of the sea wall.

Unless things go worse than expected with global warming, the house should be good until the next century, but not much beyond then. The county report projects a 7.4-foot rise in sea level by 2120, which would be a foot above the new seawall.