Cottage of the Week: $550,000 for an island retreat with stone walls

Address: 9350A Second Concession Road
Neighbourhood: Amherst Island Agent: Janet Grace and Susan Henry, Royal LePage Pro Alliance Realty, Brokerage Price: $549,000

The place

A 12-sided home on Amherst Island, with three bedrooms and one bathroom.

The stone walls are so stout they look like they’d survive a nuclear blast:

The interior of the cottage has an open floor plan, with a huge wall of windows in the living room:

Building your house around a giant central support column of stone and mortar opens up some interesting roofing possibilities:

There are three bedrooms. Here’s one of them:

And another:

And the master bedroom, which is lofted above the living room:

And the lakeshore:

The history

A local stone mason built this house over the course of seven years in the late 1970s, laying every stone himself. The sellers added a new chimney and wood stove in 2012, and they updated the bathroom and kitchen.

Big selling point

The property includes a huge amount of land: 139 acres, with 380 feet of Lake Ontario shoreline. (That translates to only about $4,000 an acre.) There’s a possibility of rental income: previous owners have rented the pasture to sheep farmers.

Possible deal breaker

The stone walls, so meticulously laid, are definitely a dominating feature of the interior aesthetic. Anyone who prefers the look of drywall may not feel comfortable here.

By The numbers

• $549,000 • $2,870 in taxes (2015) • 380 feet of shoreline • 139 acres • 3 bedrooms • 1 bathroom