Startup Beach House canceled, MTV’s “Jersey Shore” references spook renters

Plans for Startup Beach House and its accompanying web series have been canceled due to an inability to secure a house, cofounder Greg Berry wrote in a note to the Philly Startup Leaders listserv as well as on the Startup Beach House web site.

Startup Beach House announced two separate houses for the week-long accelerator over the last few months and even began accepting applications, as Technically Philly reported. Berry said in the email that both landlords he worked with were concerned about comparisons made by the press to the popular, but vulgar MTV reality series, Jersey Shore.

Berry did not respond when contacted for comment about the cancellation, but here is an excerpt from Berry’s note:

“In March, we secured a house in Avalon, which was perfect. After a news story ran dubbing the Startup Beach House the “Jersey Shore for geeks” (or something of that nature), which the owners of the house saw, they immediately cancelled [sic] the lease in fears of all things Jersey Shore.

So, off we went to find a new house, which became more difficult as inventory was quickly depleting. We found a house in Stone Harbor and signed the lease in April. The Startup Beach House was finally good to go! [enter screeching brakes sound effect here]

Wrong!

Another news story came out, again making an association to the reality show “Jersey Shore.” The realtors of the initial house saw the story and sent it to the realtors of the Stone Harbor house saying something along the lines of “we wanted to make sure you are aware of what these guys are doing.” This caused alarm for the new realtor and the owners of the Stone Harbor house, they wanted to immediately cancel the lease over concerns of the type of people at the house and any filming that would take place. After explaining in detail what we were planning to do, they hesitantly agreed to rent us the house with added stipulations, however, we did not want to work in such a non-supporting environment.

Since we no longer have time to secure a beach house for the 2012 season, we are therefore cancelling [sic] the 2012 Startup Beach House. We are taking what we learned from this year and hope to kickoff Startup Beach house for the summer of 2013.”