After cannabis retreat plans go up in smoke, California town is on the market for $2.7M
In 2017, the tiny Mojave desert town of Nipton, California, was purchased by American Green, a cannabis company with plans — plans that included turning the bite-sized town that attracted individuals from all walks of life into a marijuana-themed retreat, according to ABC 8 News.
“It spent a lot of money on infrastructure, built several eco-cabins, comfy teepees for visitors, installed massive public art pieces, and did restoration work on some of the historic structures,” ABC said. “But the cannabis retreat didn’t materialize, so the town reverted to its previous owners.”
Now, the town with a colorful and mysterious history is back on the market for $2.7 million.
Those who have stumbled onto the town often have fallen head-over-heels in love with it and its colorful past. Shannon Salter, a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who visited the town in 2009, said that the place became her escape – so much so that she became obsessed with it according to LAist and referred to it as a “magical place.”
“Probably one of the most magical on earth,” she said.
Right off Interstate 15, the town resides close to the Nevada border and an hour from the bright lights of Las Vegas. There are an estimated 15 to 20 full-time residents, ABC said, and a historic schoolhouse, RV park and art exhibits connected to Burning Man – a famous annual event held in Black Rock Desert in Pershing County, Nevada.
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Before the town was scooped up only to be dropped later by American Green, Tony Castrignano, the owner/broker of Sky Mesa Realty, who represents the owners, compared buying a town to buying a business in the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2016.
“There’s two aspects to it. The land, which is worth X amount of dollars per acre,” Castrignano told the Review-Journal in 2016 when the property was on the market for $5 million. “Then you have the businesses, and they generate income, so when we evaluated the sale price, we took that into consideration. Believe it or not, this town generates a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year in profit.”