It Took a Nova Scotia Man 30 Years to Restore This Historic 300-Year-Old Home Once Owned by the King of England

Every now and then, you come across an expensive product that just doesn’t seem like it should be all that expensive. And every now and then, you come across something that looks like it’s worth every penny. We feel that the house we’re about to show you leans towards the latter.

Believed to be one of the oldest in Nova Scotia, this Avondale home is now on the market for the relatively low price of $2 million.

"As far as I can find in any research I have done, it is the oldest building east of Quebec City," said owner Sherman Hines who bought the house in 1982 for $15,000 and has been restoring it ever since.

Hines’ home was built by French settlers as a mission and a fort against the British and is believed to date back as far as 1699, according to CBC News.

See a walk-through of the house [via CBC News]:

"We drove up and I crawled around in this basement, it was full of mud and debris. I was doing kind of a duck walk around, I couldn't stand up, and I fell in love with it," Hines said, referring to when he first bought the property, which comprises seven buildings.

After he bought the house, dubbed “The Mission,” Hines spent the next 25+ years restoring it to its original condition, which included hunting down period furniture.

"Part of my fun is saving the buildings, the other part is finding the materials to fix them up with," Hines said.

The Daily Mail provides some historical background on “The Mission”:

The Mission is listed with Tradewinds Realty and according to the company's website it was constructed at the request of Abbe Le Loutre, a few miles from Grand Pre, the famous site of the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755 - 1758.

In 1755, the Mission and land became property of the King George II of England and the Chancery.

By 1760 the Township of Newport was created and the home and land was granted to two young men from Rhode Island, named Aaron Butts and George Brightman.

If you’re interested in the house and you like the furniture, we have some good news: it’s all for sale. Everything. Why? Because now that their children are grown up and moved out, the Hines feel they don’t need all the property anymore.

"It was mainly a place for the children. It's a wonderful place for children to grow up, and now there are just two of us, and seven buildings, and we use three rooms," he said.

“Hines says his first hope is that the house could become a museum. But if not that, it could be a winery or somebody else's home,” CBC reports.

Check out the interior of “The Mission” [all photo via Tradewinds Realty, captions via Daily Mail]:

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