The California town of Nipton, in the Mojave desert, is for sale. It’s on the far edge of San Bernardino County, about an hour away from Las Vegas. It comes with a hotel, general store, trailer park, and according to local lore, the town ghost. All that is selling for $2.75 million.
“It is such an interesting place. On the surface, it seems terrible. It's really in the middle of nowhere, and you drive up to it, and it's almost like this Mirage,” explains Wall Street Journal reporter Kirsten Grind. “You just see this grove of trees … only 80 acres. … It can get more than 110 degrees in the summer. There's really only 25 residents. Everything's kind of shut down. It sounds like it would be really bad. But it's kind of charming.”
Grind says resident Roxanne Lang has owned the town with her late husband since the 1980s, and she put it on the market for the first time when he died five years ago.
“She did in fact sell it several years ago to … American Green. They're a cannabis company, and they kind of wanted to turn it into this mecca for marijuana tourists and influencers. … Then they basically ran out of money. She had to foreclose on them. And so she's put it back on the market since then, and since the pandemic, but she just hasn't found the right buyer.”