From the listing description:
Original owner believed there was a buried Spanish gold treasure in the large rock next to the house and spent many years digging three mine shafts to try to find it. It is unknown if he was successful.
Ri-iiight.
Who wants to spend over half a million dollars to go spelunking down some crazy guy’s hand-dug shaft? Anyone?
Heh, I think “fixer kitchen” might be something of an understatement here.
Oh that’s what this is. A roof. Good thing they annotated all the photos otherwise how could I have possibly known what I am looking at here.
Over $1000/sq ft?! Good thing there are some total loonies out there (besides the one trying to market this place) or there’d be NO chance of this ever selling. A shame, too, since the land is nice and the stone walls of the cabin are pretty cool. (See what I did there?) Not sure what you could do with them, but at the least they’d make a neat retreat from whatever new house you might build. But again… the price tag. These days, ground penetrating radar might be able to tell you whether there really is anything worth digging for. If so, the half-mil might turn out to be a bargain.
Well… I’m guessing that the real attraction here would be “40 acres bounded on three sides by state park” just down the road from Thousand Oaks – and the really interesting story might be how the place made it through probate to be offered for sale.
After all, if this classic eccentric hermit had spent the last sixty years or so building a house out of bottles, or a tower out of found steel, or an entire working steam engine out of beer tabs – or just about anything rather than excavating tunnels – the place might have become entangled with “Protect the art!” protests rather than just a sad tag of “Who knows, you might find it.”
If this place didn’t have such a large price tag I would be somewhat tempted. Aside from it being really earthquake prone it’s a very nice area. I also like the idea of digging for treasure in my own backyard and having a chance of actually finding it.