Want to own your own wild west town? Now you can

A once-in-a-lifetime auction has granted New Zealanders the opportunity to have their own frontier town in their backyard.

An hour north of Auckland, just outside of Wellsford amongst classic Kiwi countryside, sits a slice of the wild west. The settlement, consisting of eight standalone buildings, looks like it was imported from an old movie where cowboys are front and centre. Instead, it was put together from the ground up by local business owner Chris Bright, his business partner and his mates four years ago.

“We had a ton of fun building it, my friends and me. At the end of the day, we would have a couple beers, put it that way... it was a lot of fun.”

Bright scoured vintage stores and online auctions to create the mini town. Featuring a saloon, bank, general store and more, sights were set up to make it a destination venue and accommodation.

“We wanted it to be an Airbnb and be a place where people could rent the whole town for the weekend and party it up, you don’t get many neighbours here.

“That was the dream, but dreams change unfortunately,” Bright said.

Enlisted to help sell the cowboy sleepouts (there’s electricity but no plumbing) was Rob Blake from All About Auctions, who’s worked with Bright in the past.

“It’s definitely unique,” Blake said.

“It’s a narrow market but the main thing is getting the right people to do it justice.”

All of the buildings are under 30sqm, which Blake stressed meant you could have it on your property without having to get a building resource consent, widening the pool of possible owners.

Currently they’ve received interest from a few theme parks and events centres. While the men are open to what the town could look like next, they are hopeful one person will go for the whole bunch, despite the fact each item has to be on individually in the online auction.

“If you want them all bid on them all,” Blake said, but only as long as you’re ready to pick them up.

But, if you’re keen to dust off the boots and rock a cowboy hat without that commitment, you can always visit Chris Bright in his new western world - the Saloon Bar in Wellsford.

“We bought a bar in town and themed it western... it’s taking up all of our time so it’s time to finish up here.”

The online auction is now open and closes Sunday December 7. The sellers are hoping to get around $10,000 per building.