This 19th-century Quebec village can be yours—general store, mill, church and saloon included—for $2.8 million.
The entire 55-hectare Canadiana Village outside of the town of Rawdon—about 60 kilometres north of Montreal—is up for sale.
“A lot of people in Rawdon are very attached to it,” said local resident Beverly Prud'homme, who grew up visiting the village as original owners Earl and Nora Moore began assembling 19th-century buildings in the 1960s.
At its peak, Canadiana Village was bringing in more than 35,000 visitors in a single year. It has also served as the backdrop for many period piece and the occasional art film, such as "I'm Not There", the 2007 biopic on the many lives of Bob Dylan.
“The idea was that Earl would organize the village and get it going and then turn it over to the municipality,” Prud'homme explained. "You see, that didn’t happen.”
Following the death of the Moores, Prud'homme started a group to care for the village. It was first put up for sale by a local realtor, but no one could be swayed to buy it.
Sotheby’s International Reality has had it on the market for two months now, and the broker in charge of selling it says he’s received roughly 100 calls from prospective buyers all around the world.
Some of the ideas they have, according to the Sotheby's agent, including turning it into a nature retreat, or possibly a summer camp.
Many locals say they aren't necessarily opposed to such possibilities, but prefer keeping the site preserved as a tourist attraction, used for education and the occasional period-piece film shoot.
“What I prefer is to keep it as you can see now,” admitted Rawdon resident Serge Baril.
As does Prud'homme.
“It was a very, very good historical prompter, to get people to think about how things were and what it was like not to live with [...] electricity or running water,” she said.
—With files from Annie Demelt of CTV Montreal