LOL! This wasn't supposed to be a thread about unusual architectural designs in far-away places, but I should've realized you'd chime on this one, Tom

Funny, reading this story just reminded me of another intriguing and similar story --another self-made millionaire trying to resuscitate a town/village with his largesse and vision. I remember reading about this guy, originally from India but who made his millions in the medical device industry in the US, buying an entire ghost town (former mining town that went bust, way up the rugged north coast here in BC, near the Alaska border). The ghost town is Kitsault --read about it here. http://www.kitsault.com/ It was bought back in 2005 or so by Krishnan Suthanthiran, with a huge vision to re-make the town as an eco-tourist/artist destination, complete with sustainable community, blah blah blah. Hell of a vision, to buy a ghost town, and re-create it as something entirely different...beautiful place to try it anyway, but without any community to support it (like on Fogo Island, Newfounland)...up there, it's nearly only "howling wilderness".

And speaking of ghost towns to revive, here's (below) Butedale, a former cannery village on the mid-BC Coast, long-since abandoned, and, yes, for sale...and very remote. BC's got a couple of old resource ghost towns (Namu is another). But I doubt there are enough self-made millionaires out there with vision to remake these places...the rain forest is taking over pretty fast We stopped by last summer on our way north, and met Lou, the hermit but very social caretaker in his 70s...talk about a long, dark, lonely winter. Great guy, Lou --obviously enjoys the summertime company of the few boats that stop by!

There's an incredibly beautiful and huge waterfall just to the right of the picture. Further upstream, it used to spin a massive hydro-electric generator that powered the cannery when it was operating. Lou had hooked up a standard tiny car alternator in place of the old giant turbine, and sent the electricity to an inverter to provide his power. It was hilarious to see this large abandoned hydroelectric generating station with just a tiny spinning car alternator in it, but Lou's power needs are very small!