Some years ago, after selling their bed-and-breakfast in San Diego County, Jason Lee Beckwith and his wife began looking for hospitality property elsewhere. Their search moved progressively outward: Palomar Mountain, Joshua Tree, Portugal, Spain. In Grenada, Beckwith became briefly interested in some dwellings built into a cave on the side of a cliff, “but it just didn’t stick.”
Then one day, he stumbled upon an article about an abandoned village in Spain that was up for sale — complete with a church, school, bar and even a swimming pool. He describes this as the moment his life split into “before I knew it and after I knew it.”
In 2024, Beckwith made his first down payment on that property.
Throughout Europe, there are thousands of quaint, attractive villages that are functionally deserted, depopulated over decades by residents in search of employment elsewhere. In Spain, Portugal and Italy, the problem of rural “desertification” has grown so dire it has become a political issue. In those countries, one can easily find an entire village for sale, some for well under $1 million.
The Latest Way to Create an Isolated Retreat: Buy a Whole Village
