Texas: 2,700 sq. ft. off-grid home. Needs work

The off-grid reader: An occasional column on off-grid news and views

Save up your bottles, and you too may one day have an unique off-grid home like this one.

Looking for an off-grid fixer-upper? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

“It's a home. It's a smokehouse. It's a campground. It's sustainable living at its finest!,” reports Chron.com.

The website reports that the “unique opportunity to live off-grid” near Big Bend National Park, Texas comes with an eight KW solar panel system and three backup generators. The property includes a poultry farm, goat yard, smokehouse and more.

Some of the goats and poultry on the property.

“Everything they grow on the property, they eat,” testifies listing agent Clay Braden, of Mtn. View Properties. Soon, that could be you.

Think about it.

The place just cries warmth and home.

Braden opines the next buyer will be someone who enjoys off-grid living “in a very minimalistic setting while inheriting a business. They have to enjoy nature and having other people around, but you don't have to continue the business.”

The “Eco-Ranch” has been featured on numerous TV shows, in videos, and in magazines.

But let’s talk amenities. The eight-foot round glass smokehouse can smoke 1,000 pounds of meat at a time. Did I just hear Fred Flintstone yell: “WILMA!”

The realtor mentioned the property needs some work.

And you won’t want for company. The business part of the home contains 33 campsites, two nightly rental rooms, and more. The listing claims the campground earns about $50,000 annually. Ka-ching!

The two-bedroom, two-bath home is made of masonry and glass bottles.

After a hard day’s work tending the chickens and goats, who wouldn’t want to chill in the tub with its own toilet paper holder?

The place needs some work, according to the realtor, but the listing price of $254,450 USD practically screams bargain.

Blog TO reports mass exodus out of Toronto to off-grid living

Blog TO reports people are “fleeing” Toronto for cheaper off-grid home prices in Northern Ontario.

The source for this information is Anthony Barrett, a project manager for the Boreal Forest Medieval Villages (BFMV), an “alternative form of affordable property ownership for those looking to live off-grid.”

Barrett estimates at least 400 people are “fleeing” the GTA. Given that nearly six million people now live in the GTA, obviously the “fleeing” headline is justified - 400 people!

Blog TO reports that Boreal’s projects encompass almost 900 acres of land roughly six hours north of Toronto, but that the collective is working on adding oceanfront in Panama and New Brunswick.

Ownership models range from seasonal camps to tiny homes or off-grid houses. Blog TO said “the way of living manages to both hearken back to simpler and less expensive times and also utilize the latest in 21st-century technologies: solar panels, electric outboard motors, Starlink satellite internet, and incinerator and compost toilets among them.”

BMFV says its purchases properties in “unorganized townships” without involvement from local government, and that its unorganized townships “tend to have lower taxes.”

Imagine that!

Not surprisingly, the unincorporated villages have run into opposition from more traditional townships. “But existing cities and towns are not rolling out the welcome mat, worried such communities in unincorporated areas will harm the environment and stretch local services, the CBC reported.

An off-grid island retreat Canadian architect William Grierson built is up for grabs

But perhaps you don’t want an off-grid fixer-upper, or a sketchy piece of property you share with others in Northern Ontario.

Just maybe what you need is your own private island with a “perfectly built summer home.”

Well, you’re in luck - if you’ve got the cash.

Grierson’s “spaceship-like” cottage he built on a northern Canadian island.

Business Insider reports that “Canadian architect William Grierson built Table Rock Cottage in 1971 as a summer retreat for his family” for $2.65 million.

Grierson was a well-known Canadian architect, subject of a book titled William Grierson: Selected Works by Joan Grierson with Alex Champlin. Reviewing the book, Canadian Architect noted: “One of his cottages, on Little Bear Lake in the Haliburton district (1965), has the earthy qualities of a hobbit dwelling.”

Grierson installed solar panels in the 1980s, transforming the cottage into an off-grid dwelling at that time.

According to the listing realtor: “"The site is spectacular, with extraordinary sunsets, shooting stars, and August moons. There is no other place like it on earth.”

Inspiration for this week’s post

This was week’s Substack was produced under the influence of:

Audio: Michael Brecker’s Pilgrimage

Text: James McClure’s The Song Dog

"