Beach Recovery

Beach Recovery Foundation

Restore your Shore

Since 2002, Beach Recovery has worked to prove that an eroding shoreline can be rebuilt by working with the water instead of against it. Alongside the Beach Recovery System, the Foundation carries the rest of the work: the art the structures carry, the films that document what returns, and the record of twenty years of shoreline.

See the recordSupport the work
Three-panel record of one shoreline: crews installing early geotextile tubes along a severely eroded beach backed by riprap and a bluff-top house in 2000; the same stretch in 2003 with a wide sand beach and dune grass returning; and the same view in 2017 with established vegetation across the restored profile.
Circa 2000, 2003 and 2017. Accretion and volume figures [TBD] pending verified survey data.

The record

One shoreline, documented over seventeen years

An early version of the beach recovery system was deployed circa 2000 on a coastline in severe retreat. By circa 2003 the pilot stood as a proof of concept for geotextile containment, and the same view was documented again circa 2017.

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The founder

Gregory Sarno

Gregory Sarno founded Beach Recovery in 2002 after years spent learning how land is reclaimed from the sea, and incorporated the company in 2004. He spent the early years on the water, installing and then photographing the same stretches of coast season after season, because the argument he wanted to make could only be made with dated evidence. A car crash in 2008 halted the field work and changed the shape of the organization: an art gallery opened and a foundation was set up. In January 2016 he addressed the United Nations on beach erosion. He is Founder & Chairman of the Board of the Beach Recovery Foundation.

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The Foundation

The work, and the record of it

  • Gallery

    Photographs, time-lapse and the 2016 address at the United Nations.

  • Collaborating Artists

    Art into the Sea: one hundred artists, canvases carried by the nearshore structures, filmed for Saving BÚ.

  • Storefront

    The Foundation's Miami Beach storefront and lounge for Art Basel week, December 2026. Access for Founder Kit holders, sponsors and booth partners.

  • Leadership

    Who leads the Foundation, and the board beside them.

Shoreline projects

The Beach Recovery System is the coastal accretion system developed by Gregory J. Sarno and the Beach Recovery Foundation, delivered with engineering and installation partners selected per project. Inquiries about a shoreline come to the Foundation.

Contact the Foundation